How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Evenwood
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. Usually, if your engine has not turned, it's drained and thoroughly rinsed where your car is around Evenwood. Reading before the event? Then what follows explains why it happens and what to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Many newer diesels on the roads round Evenwood and Low Lands carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the gas to clean it, from a separate tank.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on a lot of motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. At the pump, the diesel side gets filled all the time. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less regularly. It is in the gap that the slip happens.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur in Evenwood?
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a drive off Swan Street before work, or in the car park outside The Traveller's Rest heading home: that's where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the vehicle warns you, and once it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
Then your car is strange. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, once begun, keeps on. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Evenwood or out in Evenwood Gate.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these first, at a forecourt around Evenwood or a drive out in Wackerfield. Seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Look inside your fuel flap: many motors have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Bishop Auckland? Check with the person who drove it last before leaving, not once the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
On the day the light comes on — wherever it is around Durham — a routine to follow.
- Not in a rush on the side of Shirley Close, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park then switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, yes, but it works.
- Leave your 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, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the vehicle, shut the cap and look again that your diesel cap never came off.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Never carry on to stage five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Evenwood?
Don't start the motor: that's where the short order of things begins. Don't switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
At a forecourt — JET, another forecourt nearby or any other — the staff will usually help push your car away, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Evenwood.
Already run? Stop when it is safe, then turn off. Come off the A1(M) — under 10 miles out of Evenwood — at the first junction. About how far did it go? Hopping across Evenwood is smaller work than a run of under 15 miles towards Durham, and so say.
What happens when we get there in Evenwood
By Evenwood Church of England Primary School, close to St Paul or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, we come to it. Those replies settle the work and our price, so our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and whether it has run. On the phone call itself, you hear the price — ahead of anything else.
After that: a drain, then a full flush of the entire system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. Filter flushed or, where it must be, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a test of your vehicle. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
If the engine hasn't run, most 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. No money upfront; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Evenwood itself
Evenwood is a village situated on the riverside in County Durham, with Evenwood being located approximately 13 miles from the city of Durham. Evenwood sits at an elevation of around 170 metres, and Evenwood is characterized by its predominantly terraced housing. Evenwood is part of a wider network of villages and hamlets, including nearby Evenwood Gate, Ramshaw, and Esperley Lane Ends.
AdBlue drains around Evenwood, and Durham beyond
Being a village, Evenwood shares its vans surrounding places — Ramshaw, Esperley Lane Ends — all the way across DL postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Fastest of all: give a DL14 9 postcode for our van.
Moving the car is not needed. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Cockfield Glebe Memorial Garden, a side street near Cornerstone Christian Centre: our engineers drain the car where it sits. Awkward to pin down, like the back of Gordon House Colliery? By a border? Checking beats assuming, so ring.
For Evenwood drivers, the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it wherever it stands, wherever around Durham: switch it off then ring 0333 366 0103.