AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bogston: How It Happens and How to Stop It
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then put this page aside for now, keep your ignition and engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. In Bogston, finding it before the motor turns normally leaves draining and a full flush where it stands. The rest of this page covers why it takes place and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Many modern diesels around Ladyburn, like those in Bogston, carry on two liquids; the engine gets only your diesel. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the fumes to fresh them, from its own tank.
Each tank has a filler of its own. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, the diesel side gets filled all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. Mistakes happen in that gap between the two.
Bogston: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the car, and running dry means limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Crunes Way, perhaps at The Waterwheel on the way home that evening.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the pour once it has started. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Bogston or out in Lilybank.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Check these first, at a forecourt in Bogston or a drive out in Bridgend. A few seconds, that's all.
- Position can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- On many vehicles, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Check inside your fuel flap: many motors have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park at the nearest station? Ask the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, rather than once the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — anywhere it is in Inverclyde — a routine to use.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, motor off, and never rushed by Scott Way at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave it on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Discover during the second or third step that AdBlue went in the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Never go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Bogston already?
Brief list, then. First: your motor remains unstarted. Do not switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the staff to help roll the vehicle away from the petrol pump if you are at a forecourt — the Tesco, the Morrisons or somewhere else. At home in Bogston? Then the vehicle remains put.
Already started? Pull over once it's sensible, then turn off. Bogston sits under 10 miles from the M8; there, use the next exit. Mileage counts — a short hop across Bogston is a smaller job than heading under 25 miles to Glasgow — so tell us roughly how far it went.
Bogston: what happens when we get there
Anywhere the car came to rest, whether outside the local primary school, beside Inverclyde Indoor Bowling or on your own drive, our van comes to it. Which liquid got in, the quantity, and if it ran: our engineers ask since those answers decide the work and quote. Nobody sets off before you've heard the price over the phone.
Next: a drain, then a thorough flush of the entire system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes out by itself. Hence it counts more. After the fuel filter is cleaned — or replaced, where required — clean diesel goes in, and then the car is tested. Before we go, our engineers start it and confirm that it's running correctly.
Unstarted cars mostly need a half-hour job from the moment we arrive. The equipment is safe on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. No money in advance; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. While we travel, have a look at your policy; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Bogston and where it is
Bogston is a coastal suburban area in Inverclyde, situated near the Clyde estuary at a low elevation of around 7 metres. Bogston lies within commuting distance of Glasgow, which is approximately 19 miles away, and is close to nearby places such as Lilybank and Chapleton. Bogston has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are particularly prevalent in the area.
Bogston and Inverclyde: AdBlue drains across the area
Bogston is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the places around it, Chapleton and Gibshill among them, across the PA postcode area. Fastest of all: quote a PA15 2 postcode for the van.
The car remains where it is. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Sir Stanley Spencer sculpture, a lay-by on the way to Gibshill Forest, a driveway. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Aspiration.
For Bogston drivers, the short version
Tip no AdBlue till you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it waits, anywhere around Inverclyde.