Harras: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and your ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Harras. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to your motor — but many current diesels seen about Harras and Bransty hold a second liquid too. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the fumes to fresh them, from a separate tank.
Each tank has one filler of its own. Many of motors have a single flap for the two, whereas others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled on every filling station call-out, week in, week out. Rarely filled, AdBlue usually goes in from a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think which filler to use. The mistake grows in that gap between them.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Harras: how it happens
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things coming up together.
Haste follows from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a driveway off Fern Court, or on the way home in the car park at Sunny Hill.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle 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 once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Harras or out in Bleachgreen.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt around Harras or a drive over in Corkickle. A few seconds, that's all.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- Cannot see it beside the diesel inlet? Then look beneath the bonnet or inside your boot — the owner's manual 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 Whitehaven.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
Wherever around Cumbria the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time in hand — not rushing on the side of Fern Way.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- The diesel cap remains on. When both share a flap, make sure it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and check again — confirm your diesel cap stayed shut the whole time. After that, start your car.
Spot at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop right there. Never carry on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Harras already?
Short list, then. Top of that: your engine stays off. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch it on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
The staff at Tesco, BP or another forecourt will normally lend a hand pushing the vehicle away when asked. On your own drive in Harras? So the vehicle stays put.
When your engine has been run by now, pull over somewhere safe and turn the car off. Harras lies under 50 miles from the M6; there, take the next exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Carlisle, under 50 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Harras.
Our arrival in Harras, and what takes place next
Our van reaches your car wherever it stopped — your own driveway, beside St James, or by St James' CofE Junior School. Our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run, since the replies settle this work and our price. You hear that quote by phone, before anybody heads out.
The system is then rinsed thoroughly, once that tank is cleared. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. After your filter has been cleaned — or renewed, where needed — clean diesel goes in, and then your vehicle is tested. Before we go, we fire it up and confirm that it is running smoothly.
If your engine has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Nothing in advance; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Harras itself
Harras is a coastal locality in Cumbria, situated near the towns of Whitehaven and Bleachgreen, with a mix of detached housing and open countryside. Harras sits at an elevation of 133 metres, overlooking the coastal landscape of the North West region. Harras is part of a wider area that includes Quality Corner and other small settlements, and is located approximately 34.7 miles from Carlisle. Harras has a population of around 1020 residents, living in a predominantly detached housing environment.
AdBlue drains about Harras, and Cumbria beyond
As a coastal area, Harras has the same vans as surrounding areas — Quality Corner, Whitehaven — right across CA postcodes and the wider area beyond. A postcode starting CA28 6 gets our van to you fastest.
Moving the car isn't needed. Draining happens right there, be it a drive, a road by <light blue plaque>, or a lay-by on the way to Whitehaven Golf Club. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of <dark blue plaque>, ring and ask instead of assuming.
In short, for Harras motorists
Tip no AdBlue until you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it waits, anywhere around Cumbria.