Brough: 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 ring 0333 366 0103. In Brough, finding it before the engine turns normally leaves draining and a full flush on the spot. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Diesel feeds your engine — yet plenty of current diesels driven about Brough and Brough Sowerby carry a second fluid as well. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
There is a filler on each tank. Under one flap, side by side: that's the arrangement on many cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Filling your diesel side at the pump happens constantly. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. That gap is where the slip lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Brough: how it occurs
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from your car, and running dry means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Main Street, or at the pub in the village on the way home after work.
The old car's cap is where your hand reaches — but a hire car, a new motor or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is a second factor: a new vehicle.
Lastly, the bottle goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in just as easily, and once the tip begins, no part halts it. Whether it happens in Market Brough or the middle of Brough, it is the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt around Brough or a driveway over in Langrigg. A few seconds, no more.
- Read the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally aren't.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler is if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Kirkby Stephen, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Cumbria that is.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of New Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" out loud while unscrewing it. It seems daft. It works.
- Both under a single flap? Then make sure the lid on the diesel filler stays closed before raising the bottle.
- Finish once your tank fills or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip gently using the built-in spout.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Skip stage five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Brough?
Don't start the engine: that is how the short order of things starts. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
At a forecourt — Shell, Total Energies or another — the attendants will usually help push the vehicle away, when you ask. At home in Brough? Then the car stays where it is.
When the engine has been run by now, stop somewhere safe and turn it off. On the M6, under 15 miles from Brough, that means the next exit. A short hop across Brough is a smaller job than a run towards Durham, under 50 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
What occurs when we arrive around Brough
Anywhere your car has stopped, be it outside Brough Community Primary School, beside Brough Pinfold or on your own drive, the van travels to it. What liquid got in, the amount, and if it ran: our engineers ask because the answers decide both work and price. The price is given on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
The fuel system is then cleaned thoroughly, after your tank is drained. More than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: the crystals form, some metals are attacked, and nothing washes away on its own, however long it is left. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Before we go, we start it and check that it's running correctly.
If your engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Brough
Brough is a village situated on the riverside in Cumbria, with a mix of terraced housing and other residential properties. Brough sits at an elevation of 184 metres, looking out over the surrounding countryside. Brough is located near several other small settlements, including Market Brough and Church Brough, and is within a short distance of Helbeck. Brough is a relatively small community, with a population of around 820 people.
AdBlue drains around Brough and across Cumbria
Brough is a village, and the vans that cover it also work the towns near it, Church Brough and Helbeck among them, across the CA postcode area. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting CA17 4.
The car remains where it is. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Brough Castle, a lay-by on the way to Brogden's Plantation, a drive. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Verterae, ring and ask rather than guessing.
In short, for Brough motorists
First, the cap; after that, the pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it waits, anywhere in Cumbria.