Halfway: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case put this page down for now, keep your ignition and motor off, then call 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Halfway. Nothing happened yet? Below, the page covers the reasons it happens and the ways to prevent it altogether.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
No single fluid but two: that's what plenty of modern diesels near Halfway and Hallside carry, with diesel feeding the engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas and cleans it.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of cars share a single flap for the two, whereas others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in at each forecourt visit, again and again. Seldom filled, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think what filler it needs. It is in the gap that the slip happens.
Halfway: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
Haste comes from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a driveway off Mill Road, or on the way home in the car park outside Sefton Bar.
Then your car is new. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip once it has started. It's seconds, whether in Cairns or right in the centre of Halfway.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Vicarland or a forecourt around Halfway, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- On plenty of motors, size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many vehicles carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says which it is if the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver will know. Ask as you collect a hire car or company car — from Newton's car park, say — rather than when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
When the light comes on, wherever across South Lanarkshire, use this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Overton Street.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, but it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave it on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then look once more — confirm the diesel cap stayed shut throughout. After that, start your car.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? Then stop right there. Stage five is out.
Halfway: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Brief list, then. Top of that: your motor remains off. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch it on. Diluting it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the base rather than blending — and that's where your fuel is sucked from.
At a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, Morrisons or another — the staff will normally help push the vehicle clear, when you ask. If you are on your own driveway in Halfway, leave the vehicle where it stands.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Halfway lies under 3 miles from the M74; on it, use the next exit. Mileage counts — a short hop across Halfway makes a smaller job than driving under 10 miles to Glasgow — so say roughly how far it went.
When our engineers arrive around Halfway, what happens?
Our van comes to the vehicle anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside St Cadoc's Catholic Church, or outside the local primary school. Our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and if it's run, since those replies determine this work and the quote. You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out.
Your system is then cleaned thoroughly, once the tank is drained. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Filter cleaned or, if needed, swapped; fresh diesel in; and then a test of your vehicle. Your engine is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs smoothly, all before we leave.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour once our technicians get there, as long as the engine hasn't run — and the pumps we use are safe on a live forecourt yet quiet at night beside a house. No money upfront; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Halfway, briefly
Halfway is a suburban area in South Lanarkshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 48 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Halfway lies approximately 5 miles from Glasgow, Scotland's largest city, and is surrounded by other nearby places such as Cairns, Flemington, and Westburn. Halfway has a population of around 6075 residents, making it a moderately sized community. Halfway is located relatively close to the urban centre of Glasgow, yet is far enough to maintain a distinct identity, being 339.8 miles from London.
AdBlue drains around Halfway and across South Lanarkshire
Halfway is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the places around it, Flemington and Westburn among them, across the G postcode area. Give a postcode that starts G72 7, and our van arrives fastest.
Your car stays where it is. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to North Halfway Hall, a lay-by on the way to Halfway Park, a driveway. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Flemington Hallside Parish Church.
In short, for Halfway people
Read the cap before you pour. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it is, anywhere in South Lanarkshire: keep the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.