Blackhill: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and your ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. In Blackhill, finding it before your motor runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. The remainder of this page covers why it happens and how to ensure it does not — handy if you are reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Many modern diesels in Barmulloch, as well as Blackhill, carry on two liquids; your engine gets just the diesel. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on a lot of cars. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. The diesel side is topped up at the pump all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, tipped by a driver who has to stop and think which filler it needs. The error lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank take place in Blackhill?
Carelessness rarely causes it. What does is three things coming up together.
Haste comes from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a driveway off Moodiesburn Street, or heading home in the car park outside Ranza Bar.
Then, the hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — since a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
No part halts the tip once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Blackhill or out in Riddrie.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt in Blackhill or a driveway out in Germiston. A few seconds, no more.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- Open the flap and look for a label — many vehicles mark what belongs in each inlet right there.
- Can't see it beside the diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or in the boot — the owner's manual says which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Robroyston, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
For the day the light comes on — anywhere it is across Glasgow City — a routine to follow.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Provanmill Road.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It seems daft. It works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, close the cap and check a second time that your diesel cap was never came off.
Find during the second or third step that AdBlue went into the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Never carry on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Blackhill?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the motor. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels as soon as the ignition goes on — so leave it off. 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 the car clear of the pump if you're at a forecourt — the JET, the Esso or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway in Blackhill.
Already run? Pull over once it's safe, then switch off. Come off the M8 — under a mile out of Blackhill — at the first junction. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Blackhill is less work than a trip of under 3 miles to Glasgow, and so tell us.
What happens when our engineers get there around Blackhill
Our van comes to your car anywhere it stopped — your own driveway, beside St Paul's Parish Church, or by the local primary school. Our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run, since those answers determine the work and the quote. On the call itself, you hear our quote — ahead of dispatch.
Emptying the tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes out unaided. That is why it matters more. Testing comes last: before that, fresh diesel is added, and the filter is cleaned or replaced if necessary. After that our technicians fire it up and confirm it runs correctly before leaving.
If the engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Blackhill itself
Blackhill is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Glasgow City, with an elevation of around 80 metres. Blackhill lies approximately 2 miles from Glasgow city centre and is surrounded by nearby places such as Riddrie, Provanmill, and Hogganfield. Blackhill has a population of around 3938 people and predominantly features semi-detached housing. Blackhill is located relatively close to the heart of Glasgow, yet is far from London, at a distance of 344.4 miles.
AdBlue drains around Blackhill and across Glasgow City
Being a residential suburb, Blackhill shares its vans nearby places — Provanmill, Hogganfield — all the way through G postcodes and the wider area around them. Give a postcode that starts G33 1, and the van gets there fastest.
Your car doesn't need to move. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Molendinar Park, a side street close to Molendinar Family Learning Centre: we drain the vehicle where it stands. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Molendinar Community Centre, ring and ask rather than assuming.
For Blackhill drivers, the short version
Tip no AdBlue until you have read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep the car off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Glasgow City.