Gateshead: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then put this page down a moment, keep the ignition and engine off, then phone 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, carried out just where the vehicle sits in Gateshead, is normally all it takes if caught before your motor runs. Reading in advance? Then the rest explains how it happens and how to stop it ever happening.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Not one liquid but two: that is how plenty of modern diesels near Gateshead and Bensham carry, with diesel feeding the engine. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, and there spraying cleans the gas.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of cars have a single flap for both, whereas others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less often, normally from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in the gap that the slip happens.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Gateshead: how it happens
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the vehicle, and letting it run out leads to limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Regent Street, or at The Black Bull on the way home after work.
Then the vehicle is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Shipcote or the heart of Gateshead: it is the same few seconds in both.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Teams or a forecourt in Gateshead, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Read the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on many vehicles. Check for it.
- Can't find it next to the diesel inlet? In that case look beneath the bonnet or inside your boot — 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 outside Newcastle.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Tyne and Wear that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Prince Consort Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It seems daft. It does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then check again — making sure your diesel filler stayed closed the whole time. Only then, start your car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Do not go on to stage five.
Gateshead: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Don't start the engine: that is where the short order of things starts. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
On a forecourt — Esso, Shell or another — the staff will normally help push the vehicle away, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive around Gateshead.
When your engine has been run by now, stop safely then switch it off. The next exit means where to come off when you are on the Central Motorway East, under a mile from Gateshead. A short hop across Gateshead is a smaller job than a run towards Newcastle upon Tyne, under 3 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
Gateshead: what takes place when we turn up
Anywhere the car came to rest, whether outside St Joseph's Catholic Primary School, Gateshead, beside St Joseph's Church or on your own drive, our van comes to it. Both the work and our price depend on three answers — what liquid, which amount, and whether it has run — so our technicians ask. No one heads out until you have had our quote by phone.
Emptying your tank comes next, then a full flush of the system. Much more than with petrol, it matters here: the crystals form, certain metals are attacked, and nothing clears out unaided, however long it is left. After the fuel filter is flushed — or replaced, if required — fresh diesel is added, and finally your car is tested. The motor is fired up next and tested to confirm it runs smoothly, all before we head off.
Unrun vehicles mostly need a half-hour job from arrival. The equipment is safe on a busy forecourt, and quiet enough for a residential street late at night. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. It is worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Gateshead, briefly
Gateshead is a significant urban centre situated on the southern side of the River Tyne in northeast England. As a town in Tyne and Wear, it forms part of a larger metropolitan area. Gateshead is known for its riverside location, which has played a major role in shaping the town's history and character. The town is a notable settlement in the region, with a substantial population.
AdBlue drains around Gateshead and across Tyne and Wear
Gateshead is a riverside town, and the vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Mount Pleasant and East Gateshead among them, across the NE postcode area. Quote a postcode beginning NE8 1, and the van arrives quickest.
The car stays put. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Forbidden Park, a side street close to Changing Lines: our technicians drain the vehicle where it stands. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Multilingual Library, ring and ask rather than assuming.
In short, for Gateshead drivers
Read the cap before you tip. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it wherever it stands, wherever in Tyne and Wear: switch the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103.