Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Dunrobin
Pause here a minute if the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Dunrobin. The remainder of this page explains why it happens and how to ensure it does not — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to your motor — but plenty of current diesels seen round Dunrobin and Craigneuk carry a second liquid too. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
There is a filler on each tank. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on many cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Filling your diesel side at the pump happens constantly. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less frequently. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank take place around Dunrobin?
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Towers Road before work, or in the car park at The Four Isles Bar on the way home.
Then, your hand goes for the cap it knew on the old vehicle — because a rental car, a new car or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
No part stops the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's a few seconds, be it in Moffat Mills or bang in the centre of Dunrobin.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Drumgelloch or a forecourt around Dunrobin, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- On many motors, size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- Cannot find it next to the diesel filler? In that case look beneath the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook will say where.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Drumgelloch, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
Anywhere around North Lanarkshire the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Wester Moffat Crescent.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you have found your filler and read it.
- The diesel cap remains on. When both share a flap, make sure it's closed before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the vehicle, close the cap and check again that the diesel cap never came off.
Spot at stage two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? Then stop right there. Don't carry on to step five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Dunrobin?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your motor. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the vehicle on. Topping up with diesel won't dilute it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of that tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the BP or the Morrisons, ask the attendants to help roll the car clear of the petrol pump. At home in Dunrobin? So your car stays where it is.
When the engine has run by now, stop safely and switch the vehicle off. On the M8, under 3 miles from Dunrobin, that means the next junction. About how far did it go? Crossing Dunrobin is less a job than a trip of under 15 miles towards Glasgow, so say.
Our arrival in Dunrobin, and what happens next
Outside the local primary school, near Springfield Community Centre or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, we come to it. Both the work and the price rest on three answers — what fluid, what quantity, and whether it has run — so we ask. During the phone call itself, you are told the price — before dispatch.
The fuel system is then purged thoroughly, after the tank is cleared. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of it clears out by itself. That is why it matters more. After the fuel filter has been flushed — or renewed, where needed — clean diesel goes in, and finally your vehicle is tested. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
With pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the engine has not run take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Dunrobin, briefly
Dunrobin is a suburban area situated on the riverside in North Lanarkshire, with a mix of housing types dominated by detached homes. Dunrobin sits at an elevation of 159 metres, looking out over the surrounding countryside. Dunrobin is located near several other communities, including Moffat Mills, Clarkston, and Petersburn, and is within commuting distance of Glasgow, which is approximately 11 miles away. Dunrobin has a population of around 3782 residents.
AdBlue drains in Dunrobin and across North Lanarkshire
Throughout ML postcodes, the vans covering Dunrobin — a residential suburb — work the surrounding spots too, Petersburn and Clarkston included. A postcode starting ML6 8 gets our van to you fastest.
Your car remains put. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Katherine Park, a side street near Airdrie Clarkston Parish Church: we drain it where it is. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Jackson Church of Scotland.
The short version for Dunrobin motorists
Pour nothing till you have read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Keep the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across North Lanarkshire.