How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Dunterlie
Leave your engine and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out right where your vehicle stands in Dunterlie, is normally what it needs when caught before the motor runs. The remainder of this page covers why it happens and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you are reading ahead of time.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Diesel feeds the engine — yet many modern diesels seen about Dunterlie and Arthurlie carry another fluid as well. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where spraying cleans the fumes.
There is a filler on each tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on a lot of motors. On others, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Diesel goes in at each forecourt call-out, week in, week out. Much less frequently, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. The mistake grows in that gap between them.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens in Dunterlie
Three things tend to line up, 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 car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Carlibar Road before work, or in the car park outside Fereneze Inn on the way home.
Then the car is new. 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 tip once it has started. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Dunterlie or out in Barrhead.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A couple of seconds is all these take — so check them before you pour anything, on a drive in Cross Stobbs or a forecourt around Dunterlie.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually don't.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside the fuel flap: plenty of cars carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it is if the filler is not next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Barrhead.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
For the day the warning appears — wherever it is across East Renfrewshire — a routine to follow.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Glen Street.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, confirm it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Finish once that tank fills or the bottle is empty; before that, pour slowly using the built-in spout.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at step two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop right there. Don't carry on to step five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Dunterlie already?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting the motor. Keep the ignition off as well, since on many diesels it alone runs the pump. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is sucked from.
Ask the staff to help roll your car away from the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Asda, the Barrhead Services or somewhere else. Your own driveway around Dunterlie is the place it stays.
Already run? Stop once it is safe, then switch off. Dunterlie sits under 3 miles from the M77; there, use the first junction. Mileage counts — a quick hop across Dunterlie is a smaller job than heading under 10 miles to Glasgow — so say roughly how far it went.
Dunterlie: what occurs when we arrive
The van reaches your car anywhere it has come to rest — your own drive, beside Dunterlie Park, or by the local primary school. We ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, because the replies determine the work and the price. Nobody sets off before you have heard our quote over the phone.
Then your tank is cleared and the fuel system cleaned thoroughly. More than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: the crystals form, some metals corrode, and nothing clears away on its own, however long it sits. Testing is at the end: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and your filter is flushed or replaced as needed. Next we start the car and check it runs properly before we leave.
If the motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Dunterlie itself
Dunterlie is a suburban area situated on the riverside in East Renfrewshire, with a relatively low elevation of 47 metres. Dunterlie lies close to the nearby towns of Barrhead and Crossmill, and is approximately 7.4 miles from Glasgow. Dunterlie has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly composed of flats, which accommodate its population of around 4966 residents.
AdBlue drains around Dunterlie, and East Renfrewshire beyond
Crossmill and Boylestone are among the towns near Dunterlie, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, over G postcodes. Give a postcode beginning G78 1, and the van arrives fastest.
Moving your car is not necessary. The drain takes place on the spot, be it a driveway, a street by Barrhead Methodist Church, or a layby on the way to Centenary Park. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Gospel Hall.
Dunterlie drivers: the short version
First, the cap; then, the tip. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Keep the car off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, throughout East Renfrewshire.