How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Heworth
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. In Heworth, finding it before the engine turns normally leaves draining and a full flush where it stands. Here before the event? In that case the rest explains why it comes about and what to stop it ever happening.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Not one liquid but two: that's what many modern diesels near Heworth and Heworth Shore run, with diesel feeding the engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas and cleans it.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Some vehicles put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more have both side by side under one flap. The diesel side is topped up at the petrol pump all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less regularly. It is in that gap that the mistake happens.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Heworth
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle 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 drive off High Lanes before work, or in the car park at The Swan on the way home.
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 your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, after begun, carries on. It's seconds, whether in Pelaw or right in the heart of Heworth.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a drive in Whitehills or a forecourt in Heworth.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of cars say there which fuel goes where.
- Can't find it beside the diesel inlet? In that case check below the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook says where.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside the nearest station.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
The day the light goes on, wherever across Tyne and Wear, follow this routine.
- Not in a rush on the side of Saint Cuthbert's Drive, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off properly.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — after you've located your filler and read it.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the car, close the cap and check a second time that the diesel cap was never opened off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Never go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Heworth already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the engine. Keep the ignition off too, because on plenty of diesels switching it on alone starts your pump. Thinning it with more diesel won't work, since AdBlue settles to the bottom rather than blending — and that's where your fuel is sucked from.
At a forecourt — Jet, JET or any other — the staff will usually help push the vehicle away, when you ask. If you're on your own driveway around Heworth, leave it where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the motor has already run. Leave the A194(M) — under 3 miles out of Heworth — at the next exit. A short hop across Heworth is a smaller job than a run towards Newcastle upon Tyne, under 5 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
When we arrive in Heworth, what takes place?
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside The Drive Community Primary School, near Edberts House or on your own drive. Both the work and our price depend on three replies — which fluid, what quantity, and if it has run — so we ask. During the phone call itself, you hear our price — before anything else.
Next: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and neither washes out unaided. Hence it matters more. The filter cleaned or, if needed, replaced; clean diesel in; then a test of your vehicle. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once our technicians arrive, provided your engine hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. No money in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Heworth itself
Heworth is a suburban area located inland in Tyne and Wear, approximately 3.1 miles from Newcastle upon Tyne. Heworth sits at an elevation of around 60 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Heworth is close to nearby places such as Pelaw, Heworth Lane, and Felling, and is situated about 244.9 miles north of London. Heworth has a population of around 6123 residents.
AdBlue drains around Heworth, and Tyne and Wear beyond
Over NE postcodes, the teams that cover Heworth — a residential suburb — work the nearby places too, Felling and Heworth Lane among them. Quickest of all: quote a NE10 0 postcode for the van.
The vehicle stays where it is. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Parish Church of Saint Mary, a lay-by on the way to ampitheatre, a drive. Assuming doesn't help at the back of St Mary's Church Hall, close to a border, or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and check.
Heworth drivers: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep it off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across Tyne and Wear.