Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Birkenshaw: Why It Occurs
Keep your engine and ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Normally, if your motor has not run, it is emptied and thoroughly rinsed where your vehicle sits around Birkenshaw. Here in advance? Then the rest explains why it happens and what to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to the motor — yet many current diesels seen about Birkenshaw and Machan carry a second liquid as well. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of vehicles share a single flap for the two, while some move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Filling the diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less commonly. That gap is where the slip lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens around Birkenshaw
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
On a driveway off Shaws Road before work, or in the car park outside the pub in the village on the way home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it's gone, limp mode follows.
The old car's filler is where your hand goes — but a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That's the second factor: a new car.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip once it has started. Strutherhill or the middle of Birkenshaw: it is the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Be it a Birkenshaw forecourt or a driveway over in Shawsburn, spend a few seconds over these before anything is poured in.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones are often blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- On many motors, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — many vehicles mark which belongs in each inlet just there.
- Can't see it beside the diesel filler? Then look beneath the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Larkhall? Ask the person who drove the car last before you set off, not when the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
When the light comes on, anywhere in South Lanarkshire, use this routine.
- Switch off once parked — flat ground, motor off, and never in a rush by Carlisle Court at the roadside.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — once you have found the filler and read the cap.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, confirm it's closed before lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and check a second time that your diesel cap was never came off.
Find at stage two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? So stop right there. Stage five is out.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Birkenshaw?
Brief list, then. First: your engine remains unstarted. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch it on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the attendants to help roll your car away from the pump if you are at a forecourt — the Shell, the Asda or anywhere else. On your own drive around Birkenshaw? Then the car remains where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the motor has already run. Leave the M74 — under a mile out of Birkenshaw — at the first exit. About how far did it go? Crossing Birkenshaw is less work than a run of under 15 miles to Glasgow, so say.
Birkenshaw: what happens when our technicians arrive
The van reaches the car anywhere it has come to rest — your own drive, near War Memorial, or by the local primary school. Our engineers ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it's run, because those answers determine this work and the quote. Nobody sets off before you've heard our price over the phone.
The fuel system is then cleaned thoroughly, once the tank is drained. Much more than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: crystals build up, some metals corrode, and nothing washes away unaided, no matter how long it sits. A test comes last: before that, fresh diesel is added, and the filter is cleaned or changed as needed. Next our engineers start it and confirm it runs properly before we go.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor hasn't run take roughly half an hour once our engineers are there. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Birkenshaw and where it is
Birkenshaw is a suburban area situated on the riverside in South Lanarkshire, with a mix of terraced housing and a population of around 1525 residents. Birkenshaw sits at an elevation of 137 metres, near the communities of Strutherhill, Swinhill, and Hareleeshill. Birkenshaw is located approximately 14.5 miles from Glasgow, making it a commuter base for the city. Birkenshaw's riverside setting provides a distinctive character to the area.
Birkenshaw and South Lanarkshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Over ML postcodes, the vans covering Birkenshaw — a residential suburb — work the surrounding spots too, Hareleeshill and Swinhill included. Quote a postcode that starts ML9 2, and the van arrives quickest.
No need to shift the vehicle. Anywhere it sits — near Chalmers Parish Church, in a lay-by en route to Robert Smillie Park, at home — that is where it gets emptied. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Hareleeshill Sports Barn.
In short, for Birkenshaw motorists
First, the cap; then, the pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it waits, anywhere across South Lanarkshire.