How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Elm Tree
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then set this page aside a moment, leave the ignition and engine off, then phone 0333 366 0103. In Elm Tree, finding it before your engine turns usually leaves a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Not one liquid but two: that is what plenty of newer diesels around Elm Tree and Bishopsgarth run, with diesel feeding the motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that's the arrangement on many motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump happens constantly. The AdBlue side is filled far less often, normally from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place around Elm Tree
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things lining up together.
On a drive off Foxwood Drive before work, or in the car park outside The Elmtree Pub heading home: that is where the rushed top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low your car warns you, and if it is gone, limp mode kicks in.
The old car's cap is where the hand goes — yet a hire car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That's a second factor: a strange vehicle.
Lastly, the bottle goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as easily, and once the pour begins, no part halts it. Whether it occurs in Newham Grange or the middle of Elm Tree, it is the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Elm Tree forecourt or a driveway over in Grangefield, spend a couple of seconds over these before anything goes in.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Look inside the fuel flap: many vehicles carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says which it lives if your filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Stockton, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
For the day the warning comes on — anywhere you are across Durham — a simple routine to follow.
- Switch off once parked — level ground, engine off, and not rushed by Elm Tree Avenue on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly 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.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Discover at the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Stage five stays off limits.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Elm Tree already?
Brief list, then. Top of that: the motor stays unstarted. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels as soon as the ignition is switched on — and so leave it off. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the Sainsbury's or the Esso, ask the staff to help push your car clear of the pump. On your own drive around Elm Tree? Then your car remains put.
When your motor has been run by now, stop safely then turn it off. Elm Tree sits under 10 miles from the A1(M); on it, use the first junction. Distance matters — a quick hop across Elm Tree is a smaller job than driving under 25 miles to Durham — so say roughly how far it went.
What occurs when our technicians get there around Elm Tree
Our van comes to the vehicle anywhere it stopped — your own driveway, beside Swimming Pool, or outside Whitehouse Primary School. Both the work and our quote depend on three answers — what fluid, what amount, and if it's run — so we ask. During the call itself, you are told the quote — ahead of dispatch.
The system is then purged thoroughly, after your tank is drained. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of that clears away by itself. That is why it counts more. Once your filter is cleaned — or renewed, where required — clean diesel goes in, and then your car gets tested. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running properly.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor hasn't run take about half an hour after our engineers are there. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Elm Tree
Elm Tree is a suburban area situated on the riverside in County Durham, with a mix of housing types but predominantly detached homes. Elm Tree has a relatively low elevation of 26 metres and is located near several other suburban areas, including Newham Grange and Stockton Grange. Elm Tree is close to the city of Durham, which is approximately 17 miles away, and is part of the wider North East region of England. Elm Tree is also within a reasonable distance from major cities, with London being around 218 miles to the south.
Elm Tree and Durham: AdBlue drains across the area
Elm Tree is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Stockton Grange and Hardwick among them, across the TS postcode area. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting TS19 0.
The vehicle does not need to shift. We drain it where it is — a side street near Stockton Town Football Club, a lay-by on the way to Newham Grange Park, a drive. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of St Patrick RC Church.
Elm Tree motorists: the short version
First, the cap; then, the pour. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Keep it off and phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, throughout Durham.