Dicks Hill: 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 the engine and your ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. Usually, when your engine has not turned, it is drained and fully cleaned where your vehicle sits in Dicks Hill. Not happened yet? Below, the page explains the reasons it takes place and the ways to avoid it altogether.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
No single liquid but two: that is how many newer diesels near Dicks Hill and Sheuchan Parks run, with diesel for the motor. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, where spraying cleans the fumes.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on a lot of vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Filling the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
Dicks Hill: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off John Simpson Drive before work, or in the car park outside The Railway Inn on the way home.
Unfamiliar cars are second, too. Hire cars, new cars and company vehicles place their fillers in new places, and the hand goes for the cap 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 after it has started. It's seconds, be it in Stranraer or bang in the centre of Dicks Hill.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Look at these first, on a forecourt in Dicks Hill or a driveway out in Culhorn. Seconds, that's all.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue ones are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally aren't.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- Open the filler flap and look for a label — many cars show which goes in each filler right there.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Stranraer, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Dumfries and Galloway that is.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of John Simpson Avenue.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your 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.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Leave out step five entirely.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Dicks Hill already?
Do not start your engine: that's how the short order of things starts. Do not switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Do not 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 pulled from.
The attendants at Solo, Morrisons or any forecourt will usually help pushing the vehicle away if you ask. On your own drive in Dicks Hill? So the car remains where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. Come off the M77 — over 50 miles out of Dicks Hill — at the next junction. A short hop across Dicks Hill is a smaller job than a run towards Belfast, under 50 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we get there around Dicks Hill, what takes place?
Anywhere the vehicle has stopped, whether by the local primary school, beside Coronation Day Centre or at home, the van travels to it. Which fluid was put in, the quantity, and if it ran: our engineers ask since those replies decide the work and quote. You hear that price by phone, before anyone sets off.
Draining the tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that counts more here than with petrol. Once the fuel filter has been cleaned — or renewed, where required — fresh diesel goes in, and then the vehicle gets tested. Before leaving, our engineers fire it up and check that it is running properly.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour after our technicians arrive, as long as the motor hasn't run — and the pumps we use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Dicks Hill itself
Dicks Hill is a coastal suburban area in Dumfries and Galloway, situated near the town of Stranraer and overlooking the sea. Dicks Hill has a relatively low elevation of 17 metres and is located close to other nearby places such as Stranraer Town and Ochtrelure. Dicks Hill is characterised by its predominant semi-detached housing stock, which reflects the typical residential architecture of the region.
AdBlue drains about Dicks Hill, and Dumfries and Galloway beyond
As a residential suburb, Dicks Hill has the same vans as nearby areas — Stranraer Town, Ochtrelure — right across DG postcodes and the wider area around them. A postcode starting DG9 7 gets our van to you fastest.
The vehicle does not need to move. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near Lewis Street Gospel Hall, a lay-by on the way to Dick's Hill Park, a drive. Awkward to pin down, like the back of Ryan Centre? Close to a border? Checking beats guessing, and so ring.
In short, for Dicks Hill motorists
First, the cap; after that, the tip. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it stands, anywhere around Dumfries and Galloway.