How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Freuchie
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? In that case put this page down a moment, leave your ignition and motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, carried out right where your vehicle stands around Freuchie, is usually all it takes when found before your engine runs. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Not one fluid but two: that is how plenty of modern diesels around Freuchie and Kettlebridge carry, with diesel for the engine. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to fresh it, from a separate tank.
Every tank has one filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that's the arrangement on many motors. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the petrol pump, the diesel side is topped up constantly. The AdBlue side is filled far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. Mistakes happen in that gap between the two.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place around Freuchie
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things coming up together.
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 driveway off High Street before work, or in the car park outside Albert Tavern on the way home.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part stops the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Muirhead or the middle of Freuchie: it is the same few seconds either way.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Gateside or a forecourt around Freuchie, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally are not.
- On plenty of motors, size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside the fuel flap: many vehicles carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check when you collect a hire car or company car — at Ladybank's car park, perhaps — not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
For the day the light comes on — wherever it is around Fife — a simple routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of Lomond Road, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. When both sit under a flap, make sure it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and look once more — confirm the diesel filler stayed shut the whole time. Only then, start your car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Freuchie already?
Do not start your engine: that is where the short order of things starts. Do not switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Diluting it with more diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the base rather than blending — and that's where your fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — BP, Asda or any other — the attendants will usually help roll the vehicle away, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive in Freuchie.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. On the M90, under 10 miles from Freuchie, that means the next exit. A short hop across Freuchie is a smaller job than a run towards Perth, under 15 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
Freuchie: what happens when our technicians turn up
Our technicians come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside the local primary school, close to War Memorial or on your own drive. Our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run, since those answers settle the work and the price. That quote comes on the call, before any van leaves.
Then your tank is cleared and the fuel system purged 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 the flush counts more here than with petrol. After your filter has been cleaned — or replaced, if needed — fresh diesel goes in, and then the vehicle gets tested. Your engine is started next and checked to be sure it runs correctly, all before our engineers leave.
Unstarted cars mostly need a half-hour visit from arrival. The kit is fine on a live forecourt, and quiet enough for a residential street after dark. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Freuchie and where it is
Freuchie is a village in Fife, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of around 60 metres. Freuchie lies near the towns of Muirhead and Newton of Falkland, and is within commuting distance of Perth. Freuchie has a population of approximately 1186 people, living mostly in detached houses. Freuchie is located in a scenic area, with the city of Perth just 14.8 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Fife, Freuchie included
Being a village, Freuchie shares its vans nearby places — Newton of Falkland, Kirkforthar Feus — right across KY postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. A postcode starting KY15 7 gets the van to you fastest.
There's no need to shift the vehicle. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Queens Park, a side street near Freuchie Parish Church: our technicians drain the vehicle where it is. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Lumsden Memorial Hall.
In short, for Freuchie motorists
Read the cap before you pour. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, anywhere around Fife: keep the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103.