Cruden Bay: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Stop here for a moment if the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then call 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Cruden Bay. Here before the event? Then what follows covers why it happens and how to stop it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds the motor — yet many current diesels driven around Cruden Bay and Whinnyfold carry a second liquid as well. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the fumes to clean it, from a separate tank.
Each tank has a filler of its own. Plenty of vehicles share a single flap for both, while others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. Much less regularly, the AdBlue side gets filled — mostly from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur around Cruden Bay?
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Aulton Road before work, or in the car park at Kilmarnock Arms on the way home.
Unfamiliar vehicles are next, as well. Rentals, new vehicles and company motors place their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, after started, keeps on. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Cruden Bay or out in Port Erroll.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Longhaven or a forecourt in Cruden Bay, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Read the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — many cars mark which goes in which inlet just there.
- The handbook says where it is when the filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver knows. Ask when you pick up a hire car or company car — from the nearest station's car park, perhaps — not when the warning appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
When the light comes on, anywhere across Aberdeenshire, follow this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Bridge Street.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, but it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, close the cap and check again that the diesel cap never opened off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Never carry on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Cruden Bay?
Do not start your engine: that is how the short order of things begins. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch it on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
The attendants at the nearest petrol station, another forecourt nearby or any forecourt will normally lend a hand pushing your car away if you ask. Your own drive in Cruden Bay is the place it should stay.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the engine has already run. The next exit is where to leave if you're on the M90, over 50 miles from Cruden Bay. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Aberdeen, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Cruden Bay.
Cruden Bay: what happens when our engineers arrive
Outside the local primary school, near Congegrational Church or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. We ask what got in, about how much, and whether it's run, because those answers settle this work and the quote. During the call itself, you hear our price — ahead of anything else.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more here than with petrol. Testing comes at the end: before that, clean diesel is added, and your filter is cleaned or replaced as needed. Then our engineers start the engine and make sure it runs smoothly before we leave.
Unstarted vehicles mostly need a half-hour visit after arrival. The equipment is fine on a busy forecourt, and quiet enough for a residential street late at night. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Cruden Bay, briefly
Cruden Bay is a small coastal village in Aberdeenshire, situated on the north-east coast of Scotland, with a population of around 1012 people. Cruden Bay has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are the most common, and the village is close to nearby places like Port Erroll and Chapel Hill. Cruden Bay is located near the Bullers o Buchan, a notable coastal feature, and is about 20 miles from Aberdeen. Cruden Bay sits at a low elevation of around 11 metres above sea level, making it a typical coastal settlement.
AdBlue drains around Cruden Bay, and Aberdeenshire beyond
Being a coastal village, Cruden Bay has the same vans as surrounding places — Chapel Hill, Bullers o Buchan — all the way through AB postcodes and the surrounding area around them. A postcode starting AB42 0 gets our van to you fastest.
There's no need to shift the car. Anywhere it sits — near Tryggve Gran Memorial, in a layby heading to Cruden Bay Golf Club, at home — that is where it gets drained. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Cruden Bay Library.
The short version for Cruden Bay motorists
Tip nothing till you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere in Aberdeenshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless — so leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.