Holmhill: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Stop reading for a moment if the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Holmhill. The rest of this page explains why it takes place and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Plenty of modern diesels around Burnhead, like those in Holmhill, carry on two fluids; the engine takes just your diesel. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
Every tank has a filler of its own. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on a lot of cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less regularly. That gap is where the error lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Holmhill: how it happens
Carelessness rarely causes it. What does is three things coming up at once.
On a driveway off Drumlanrig View before work, or in the car park at Farmer's Arms on the way home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle warns you, and if it is gone, limp mode kicks in.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — yet a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That's a second factor: a new motor.
A spout-topped bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, after begun, keeps on. Thornhill or the middle of Holmhill: it is the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt around Holmhill or a drive over in Carronbridge. Seconds, no more.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue ones are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally aren't.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of vehicles have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it is when the filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Sanquhar? Ask the person who drove it last before you set off, not once the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Anywhere in Dumfries and Galloway the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time in hand — never rushing on the side of Boat Brae.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — after you have located the filler and read it.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two share a flap, confirm it is shut before the bottle comes up.
- Stop once that tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip slowly through the own spout.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Never go on to step five.
Holmhill: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the motor. The fuel pump runs on many diesels the moment the ignition goes on — and so keep it off. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of the tank, right where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, another forecourt nearby or another — the staff will usually help roll the car clear, if you ask. If you are on your own drive around Holmhill, leave the car where it sits.
Already run? Pull over once it is safe, then switch off. On the A74(M), under 15 miles from Holmhill, that means the next exit. About how far did it go? Hopping across Holmhill is less a job than a run of under 50 miles towards Carlisle, and so tell us.
Holmhill: what takes place when our technicians get there
Our van comes to your car anywhere it stopped — your own drive, near Mercat Cross, or by the local primary school. We ask what went in, about how much, and if it has run, since the replies decide the work and our quote. On the phone call itself, you hear our quote — before anything else.
The system is then flushed thoroughly, once the tank is cleared. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. The filter flushed or, if needed, replaced; fresh diesel in; and then a test of your car. We do not go until it has been started and is running properly.
Unrun cars mostly mean a half-hour visit after the moment we arrive. The kit is fine on a live filling station, and quiet enough for a residential street late at night. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork your insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, have a look at your insurance documents; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Holmhill, for a moment
Holmhill is a locality situated on the banks of a river in Dumfries and Galloway, with an elevation of around 73 metres. Holmhill lies near the towns of Thornhill and Carlisle, and is part of a wider area of rural and suburban development. Holmhill has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are particularly common in the area. Holmhill is located approximately 298 miles northwest of London, and is close to other nearby places such as Townhead and Nithbank.
AdBlue drains across Dumfries and Galloway, Holmhill included
As a small village, Holmhill has the same vans as surrounding areas — Townhead, Nithbank — all the way across DG postcodes and the wider area beyond. Give a postcode beginning DG3 5, and the van gets there fastest.
No need to shift the vehicle. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Briery Park, a side street close to Community Centre: our technicians drain the vehicle where it stands. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of War Memorial.
The short version for Holmhill people
Pour nothing until you have read the cap. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it where it stands, wherever around Dumfries and Galloway: keep the car off then ring 0333 366 0103.