Fife Keith: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Stop reading a minute if the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. Usually, if the engine has not turned, it's drained and fully rinsed where your car sits around Fife Keith. Nothing happened yet? Below, the rest of the page covers the why it occurs and the how to prevent it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of modern diesels around Denhead, as well as Fife Keith, carry on two liquids; your engine gets only the diesel. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, where spraying treats the gas.
Every tank has a filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on many cars. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Diesel gets filled on each forecourt visit, week in, week out. The AdBlue side is topped up far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in the gap that the slip happens.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Fife Keith: how it occurs
Carelessness rarely causes it. What does is three things lining up at once.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Fraser Place before work, or in the car park outside the pub in the village on the way home.
The old car's filler is where the hand reaches — but a hire car, a new motor or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That's a second factor: an unfamiliar car.
Third, the spout fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in as easily, and after the pour begins, no part stops it. Whether it occurs in Keith or the middle of Fife Keith, it is the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Whether a Fife Keith forecourt or a driveway out in Newmill, take a couple of seconds over these before anything goes in.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually aren't.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of vehicles show which belongs in each inlet right there.
- Cannot see it beside the diesel inlet? In that case check beneath the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook will say where.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Keith, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
For the day the light comes on — wherever it is across Moray — a routine to follow.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Nelson Terrace.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, perhaps, yet it works.
- The two under a single flap? Then confirm the cap on your diesel side is still shut before raising the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Skip step five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Fife Keith?
Short list, then. First: your engine remains unstarted. Keep the ignition off too, since on many diesels switching it on alone starts the pump. Diluting it with more diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of mixing — and that's where your fuel is pulled from.
At a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, another forecourt nearby or any other — the staff will normally help roll the vehicle clear, if you ask. On your own drive around Fife Keith? So the vehicle stays put.
Already started? Stop when it's safe, then turn off. On the M90, over 50 miles from Fife Keith, that means the next junction. About how far did it go? Crossing Fife Keith is smaller a job than a trip of under 50 miles towards Aberdeen, so tell us.
When our technicians arrive around Fife Keith, what happens?
The van reaches the car anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, near Turner Memorial Hospital, or by the local primary school. The answers decide this work and the quote, and so our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it's run. During the call itself, you are told our price — before dispatch.
Then your tank is cleared and your system flushed thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. After your filter is cleaned — or renewed, where needed — clean diesel goes in, and then your car gets tested. Before we leave, our engineers fire it up and make sure that it is running properly.
If the engine has not 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 after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — so use the wait to check yours.
About Fife Keith itself
Fife Keith is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Moray, with a mix of semi-detached housing and other residential properties. Fife Keith has a population of around 2419 people and is located near the town of Keith and other nearby places such as Old Keith and Drum. Fife Keith sits at an elevation of 141 metres, close to the River Isla, and is within commuting distance of Aberdeen, which is 42 miles away. Fife Keith is also relatively distant from major cities in the south, with London being approximately 432 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Moray, Fife Keith included
Over AB postcodes, our teams that cover Fife Keith — a residential suburb — work the surrounding locations too, Drum and Old Keith among them. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting AB55 5.
The vehicle remains where it is. Wherever it stands — near Kirk of Keith: St Rufus Botriphnie & Grange, in a layby en route to 'Wee Widdie', on a drive — that is where it gets cleared. Guessing doesn't help at the back of James Taylor Memorial Fountain, close to a boundary, or anywhere awkward to describe; phone and check.
In short, for Fife Keith drivers
Before you pour, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave it off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere in Moray.