Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Erskine Harbour: Why It Happens
Keep your engine and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain and a thorough flush, done right where the vehicle sits around Erskine Harbour, is normally all it needs if caught before the motor runs. Reading before the event? In that case what follows explains how it happens and what to prevent it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
No single fluid but two: that's how plenty of newer diesels around Erskine Harbour and Rashielee carry, with diesel for your engine. The exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to fresh them, from a separate tank.
There's a filler on every tank. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Topping up your diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. Far less frequently, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. It is in the gap that the slip lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens around Erskine Harbour
It's hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off A726 before work, or in the car park outside The Glen Lusset on the way home.
Next, your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — because a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
A spout-topped bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, after begun, carries on. It's a few seconds, be it in Erskine or right in the heart of Erskine Harbour.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Whether a Erskine Harbour forecourt or a drive over in Town Centre, take a few seconds over these before any goes in.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually do not.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of motors have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Kilpatrick.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Renfrewshire that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Barwood Drive.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- The two under a single flap? So make sure the cap on the diesel filler is still closed ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and look again that the diesel cap was never opened off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Don't carry on to step five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Erskine Harbour?
Do not start your motor: that is where the short order of things begins. The fuel pump runs on many diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Topping up with diesel won't weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — Shell, JET or any other — the attendants will normally help push the car clear, when you ask. At home in Erskine Harbour? Then your car remains put.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. On the Toll Plaza Interchange, under a mile from Erskine Harbour, that means the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Erskine Harbour is smaller work than a trip of under 10 miles to Glasgow, so tell us.
Erskine Harbour: what occurs when our engineers get there
Wherever the vehicle has stopped, whether by the local primary school, beside St John Boscos Church or on your own drive, the van comes to it. Which fluid went in, the amount, and if it ran: our technicians ask because those replies decide the work and price. That price is given on the call, before any van leaves.
After that: draining, then a thorough flush of the entire system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither clears out unaided. Hence it matters more. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe 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. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Erskine Harbour itself
Erskine Harbour is a coastal suburban area in Renfrewshire, situated near the towns of Erskine and Bargarran. Erskine Harbour sits at a low elevation of around 5 metres, with views out to the River Clyde and the surrounding coastline. Erskine Harbour is characterized by its terraced housing and proximity to Glasgow, which is approximately 9 miles away.
AdBlue drains in Erskine Harbour and across Renfrewshire
Erskine Harbour is a residential suburb, and the teams that cover it also work the towns around it, North Barr and Bargarran among them, across the PA postcode area. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting PA8 6.
Moving the car isn't needed. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Crannog, a lay-by on the way to The Saltings, a drive. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of War Memorial, ring and ask rather than guessing.
The short version for Erskine Harbour motorists
Read the cap before you tip. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, anywhere around Renfrewshire: keep the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.