Ecclefechan: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? In that case put this page aside for now, keep your ignition and motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. In Ecclefechan, catching it before your engine runs usually leaves draining and a thorough flush where it stands. Reading before the event? Then what follows explains why it comes about and what to stop it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Diesel feeds your motor — but plenty of current diesels driven round Ecclefechan and Eaglesfield carry another liquid too. Its own tank holds it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, and there spraying treats the gas.
Each tank has its own filler. Many of cars share a single flap for both, while others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think which cap it needs. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen around Ecclefechan?
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Haste comes from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off Burnbank Street, or on the way home in the car park outside the pub in the village.
The old car's cap is where your hand goes — but a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That is a second thing: a strange vehicle.
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 after it has started. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Ecclefechan or out in Hoddomcross.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these first, at a forecourt around Ecclefechan or a driveway out in Middleshaw. A few seconds, no more.
- Check the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally are not.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the flap and look for a label — many vehicles show which belongs in which inlet right there.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask as you collect a hire car or fleet car — from Annan's car park, say — not when the light appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
Anywhere in Dumfries and Galloway the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never rushing on the side of Church Street.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — once you have found your filler and read it.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, close the cap and check a second time that the diesel cap never came off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Leave out step five entirely.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Ecclefechan already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the motor. Keep the ignition off as well, since on many diesels it alone runs the pump. Thinning it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of blending — and that is where your fuel is pulled from.
The attendants at the nearest petrol station, another forecourt nearby or any forecourt will usually lend a hand to push the car away when you ask. If you're on your own drive around Ecclefechan, leave it where it sits.
Where your motor has been run by now, stop somewhere safe and turn it off. Come off the A74(M) — under a mile out of Ecclefechan — at the next junction. A short hop across Ecclefechan is a smaller job than a run towards Carlisle, under 25 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
Ecclefechan: what occurs when we arrive
The van comes to the vehicle wherever it stopped — your own driveway, beside Thomas Carlyle's Birthplace, or by the local primary school. The replies determine this work and our price, so our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. You hear that quote on the phone, before anyone heads out.
Then your tank is drained and the system purged thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither clears out by itself. Hence it counts more. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. The engine is fired up next and checked to make sure it runs correctly, all before our technicians leave.
If the motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Ecclefechan itself
Ecclefechan is a small village situated on the banks of the River Annan in Dumfries and Galloway, with a mix of terraced housing and other residential properties. Ecclefechan sits at an elevation of 46 metres, close to the English border and near the villages of Hoddomcross and Middlebie. Ecclefechan is located near the city of Carlisle, which is approximately 17.5 miles away. Ecclefechan has a population of around 788 people, making it a tight-knit community.
Ecclefechan and Dumfries and Galloway: AdBlue drains across the area
As a village, Ecclefechan has the same vans as surrounding areas — Middlebie, Brydekirk — all the way across DG postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting DG11 3.
The vehicle remains put. Wherever it sits — beside The Arched House, on a lay-by en route to Shawbrae Moor Plantation, at home — that is where it is cleared. Guessing doesn't help at the back of War Memorial, close to a boundary, or anywhere hard to describe; phone and ask.
In short, for Ecclefechan people
First, the cap; then, the pour. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it wherever it stands, anywhere in Dumfries and Galloway: keep the car off then ring 0333 366 0103.