How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Gainford
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case set this page aside a moment, leave your ignition and engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Around Gainford, finding it before your motor runs normally means draining and a full flush on the spot. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest 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
Plenty of newer diesels around Caldwell, like those in Gainford, run on two liquids; the engine gets just your diesel. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas and cleans it.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more have the two together under one flap. At the pump, the diesel side gets filled constantly. Much less regularly, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Gainford: how it occurs
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
On a driveway off High Row before work, or in the car park outside The Cross Keys heading home: that is where the hurried top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car warns you, and once it's gone, limp mode kicks in.
Unfamiliar cars are second, too. Rentals, new cars and company vehicles put their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it takes place in Headlam or the middle of Gainford, it's the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these first, at a forecourt around Gainford or a driveway out in Eppleby. Seconds, no more.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps are often blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- Many motors fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler is if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Check with 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 outside Shildon.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
On the day the warning comes on — anywhere you are in Durham — a routine to use.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Main Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop just there. Stage five is off limits.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Gainford?
Do not start your motor: that is how the short order of things begins. Leave the ignition off as well, because on plenty of diesels it by itself starts the fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
The attendants at the nearest petrol station, another forecourt nearby or any forecourt will normally lend a hand pushing the car away when asked. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Gainford.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. The next junction means the place to come off if you are on the A1(M), under 10 miles from Gainford. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Gainford is less work than a run of under 25 miles towards Durham, so tell us.
Gainford: what takes place when our technicians turn up
Our engineers come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Gainford Church of England Primary School and Preschool, near Gainford War Memorial or on your own driveway. The answers settle this work and the price, and so we ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has run. The price is given over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Then your tank is drained and the fuel system flushed thoroughly. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of it washes away by itself. Hence it matters more. A test is last: before that, clean diesel is added, and the filter is cleaned or replaced as needed. Your engine is fired up next and checked to be sure it runs properly, all before our technicians leave.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once we arrive, as long as your motor has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, take a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Gainford
Gainford is a village in County Durham, situated on the banks of the River Tees at an elevation of 77 metres. Gainford lies approximately 17 miles northwest of Durham city and 220 miles north of London, within a rural landscape of rolling hills and valleys. Gainford has a mix of housing types, but terraced houses are particularly prevalent in the village. Gainford is close to several nearby villages, including Headlam, Langton, and Winston.
AdBlue drains in Gainford and across Durham
Gainford is a village, and our vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Langton and Winston among them, across the DL postcode area. A postcode starting DL2 3 gets the van to you fastest.
There's no need to shift the vehicle. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Gainford Village Hall, a lay-by on the way to Village Green, a driveway. Awkward to explain, like the back of St Mary's, Gainford? By a border? Asking beats guessing, and so ring.
For Gainford people, the short version
First, the cap; then, the tip. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it stands, wherever around Durham: switch the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103.