How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Durham
Stop here a minute if the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. In Durham, catching it before your engine turns normally leaves draining and a thorough flush on the spot. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Plenty of current diesels on the roads about Durham and Nevilles Cross carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There is a filler for each tank. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less regularly. The slip lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place in Durham
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Hurry follows from the warning. The vehicle warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off A690, or on the way home in the car park outside The Station House.
Unfamiliar cars are second, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and habit goes for the cap used on the old one.
Third, the spout goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in just as readily, and after the tip starts, nothing halts it. It's a few seconds, be it in Western Hill or bang in the heart of Durham.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
A few seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a drive in Aykley Heads or a forecourt around Durham.
- Read the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually aren't.
- Plenty of cars fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of cars say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at the nearest station, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
On the day the light appears — anywhere it is in Durham — a routine to use.
- Switch off once parked — level ground, motor stopped, and never rushed beside North Road on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- 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 is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the 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. Leave out step five entirely.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Durham?
Short list, then. First: your motor stays off. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it is the Esso or the Shell, ask the attendants to help push the vehicle away from the pump. If you're on your own driveway around Durham, leave the vehicle where it is.
Where the engine has run already, pull over safely and switch the vehicle off. Come off the A1(M) — under 3 miles out of Durham — at the first junction. Mileage counts — a short hop across Durham makes a smaller job than heading under 15 miles to Sunderland — so tell us roughly how far it went.
Durham: what happens when we arrive
By St Margaret's Church of England Primary School, close to North Road Methodist Church or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, since the replies settle the work and the price. On the call itself, you are told the price — ahead of anything else.
Draining your tank comes next, then a full flush of the system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither clears away by itself. That is why it counts more. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Before we leave, our technicians start it and confirm that it is running smoothly.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor hasn't run need roughly half an hour after we are there. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. It is worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Durham and where it is
Durham is a city situated on the River Wear in north-east England, with a population of around 43793 people. Durham sits at an elevation of 53 metres, surrounded by nearby places such as Western Hill and The Sands. Durham is characterized by its semi-detached housing and is located near the city of Sunderland, approximately 11.7 miles away. Durham is also about 233.9 miles north of London.
Durham and Durham: AdBlue drains across the area
The Sands and North End are among the towns near Durham, a cathedral city, that the same teams cover, over DH postcodes. Quickest of all: quote a DH1 4 postcode to the van.
Your car doesn't need to shift. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Friends of Wharton Park, a side street near St Godric's: our engineers drain the car where it is. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of 20,000th Mast on East Coast Main Line.
Durham people: the short version
Always, the cap; then, the tip. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around Durham, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — so leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103.