Houghall: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Stop reading a minute if your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Houghall. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Diesel goes to the engine — yet many newer diesels seen around Houghall and Merryoaks carry another fluid as well. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. Many of vehicles have a single flap for the two, whereas some move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in at each forecourt visit, week in, week out. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. Mistakes happen in that gap between the two.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur around Houghall?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
On a drive off Houghall Lane before work, or in the car park outside The Rose Tree on the way home: that is where the rushed top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car tells you, and once it's gone, limp mode kicks in.
The old car's filler is where the hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is the second factor: an unfamiliar car.
A spouted bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after begun, carries on. Whether it happens in Shincliffe or the middle of Houghall, it's the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Houghall forecourt or a driveway out in Old Durham, spend a couple of seconds over these before anything goes in.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Look for it.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- 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 Durham.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Durham that is.
- Turn off once parked — flat ground, motor stopped, and not in a rush beside Hollingside Lane on the verge.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you've located your filler and read the cap.
- Both under one flap? So confirm the lid on your diesel side is still closed ahead of raising the bottle.
- Finish when the tank fills or the bottle is empty; before that, tip slowly using the built-in spout.
- Close the cap, and check again — confirm your diesel filler stayed shut 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.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Houghall?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with not starting the motor. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of blending — and that is where your fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Shell, Esso or any other — the staff will normally help roll the car clear, when you ask. Your own driveway around Houghall is where it stays.
Where the motor has run already, pull over somewhere safe then switch it off. Houghall sits under 3 miles from the A1(M); on it, take the next exit. A short hop across Houghall is a smaller job than a run towards Durham, under 3 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
Houghall: what happens when our engineers turn up
Outside St Oswald's Church of England Aided Primary and Nursery School, near Houghall Colliery or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, we come to it. Which liquid went in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our technicians ask because the answers decide both work and quote. On the phone call itself, you are told our quote — before dispatch.
The fuel system is then rinsed thoroughly, once that tank is emptied. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. A test is at the end: before that, fresh diesel is added, and your filter is cleaned or changed as needed. Before we go, we start the engine and make sure that it is running correctly.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once we get there, as long as your motor hasn't run — and the pumps we use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet after dark beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. While we travel, have a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Houghall itself
Houghall is a small hamlet situated on the riverside in County Durham, near the city of Durham. Houghall sits at an elevation of 38 metres, close to the nearby places of Shincliffe, High Shincliffe, and Elvet Hill. Houghall is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its residential nature. Houghall is located approximately 1.6 miles from Durham city centre, making it a commuter-friendly location.
AdBlue drains across Durham, Houghall included
Houghall is a rural hamlet, and the teams that cover it also work the places around it, High Shincliffe and Elvet Hill among them, across the DH postcode area. A postcode starting DH1 3 gets our van to you fastest.
Your car remains where it is. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street close to Houghall Pit Village, a lay-by on the way to Hollinside Wood, a driveway. Assuming doesn't help at the back of Fungate, close to a border, or somewhere awkward to pin down; ring and ask.
The short version for Houghall people
Read the cap before you pour. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it where it is, anywhere across Durham: switch it off and ring 0333 366 0103.