Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Egglescliffe
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and the ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. Usually, when your motor has not run, it is emptied and fully cleaned where your car sits around Egglescliffe. Not happened yet? Below, the page covers the reasons it takes place and the ways to avoid it altogether.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Plenty of current diesels on the roads round Egglescliffe and Aislaby carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, where a spray treats the gas.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the arrangement on many vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, poured by a driver who has to stop and think what filler it needs. The slip lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place around Egglescliffe
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Durham Lane before work, or in the car park outside The Eagle on the way home.
New-to-you cars are next, as well. Hire cars, new cars and company cars put their fillers in new places, and the hand reaches for the cap it 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, so nothing stops the tip once it has started. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Egglescliffe or out in Yarm.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Roundhill Village or a forecourt in Egglescliffe, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually don't.
- On plenty of cars, size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it is if your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask as you collect a rental or fleet car — from Allens West's car park, perhaps — not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Durham that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Elton Lane.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, perhaps, but it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the vehicle, shut the cap and check a second time that the diesel cap never came off.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Do not go on to stage five.
Egglescliffe: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the motor. Do not switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
At a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, Esso or any other — the staff will normally help roll the car clear, if you ask. If you are on your own drive in Egglescliffe, leave the car where it is.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next exit is the place to come off if you are on the A1(M), under 10 miles from Egglescliffe. A short hop across Egglescliffe is a smaller job than a run towards Durham, under 25 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
What happens when our technicians arrive around Egglescliffe
The van reaches your car wherever it stopped — your own drive, near Egglescliffe Community Centre, or outside Durham Lane Primary School. Those replies decide the work and our price, and so our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has run. The quote is given over the phone, before any van leaves.
Emptying the tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the fuel system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of that clears out unaided. That is why it matters more. Once the filter has been flushed — or replaced, if needed — clean diesel is added, and then your vehicle is tested. Next our engineers fire it up and check it runs properly before we leave.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour once our technicians arrive, as long as your motor has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Egglescliffe, briefly
Egglescliffe is a village situated on the banks of the River Tees in County Durham, with a mix of semi-detached housing and other residential properties. Egglescliffe lies at an elevation of 29 metres, approximately 20 miles south of Durham city and 214 miles north of London. Egglescliffe is close to nearby settlements such as Yarm and Eaglescliffe, and is part of the wider Tees Valley area. Egglescliffe has a population of around 2783 people, living in a range of housing types, predominantly semi-detached homes.
Egglescliffe and Durham: AdBlue drains across the area
Over TS postcodes, the teams that cover Egglescliffe — a village — work the surrounding locations too, Eaglescliffe and Urlay Nook included. Quote a postcode that starts TS16 0, and our van arrives fastest.
No need to move the car. The drain happens on the spot, be it a drive, a street near Egglescliffe Parish Hall, or a layby on the way to Allens West. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Egglescliffe War Memorial.
For Egglescliffe motorists, the short version
Always, the cap; then, the tip. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave the car off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere around Durham.