Hummersknott: 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 the engine and your ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out just where your car stands in Hummersknott, is normally what it takes if caught before your motor runs. The rest of this page covers why it happens and how to make sure it does not — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Many newer diesels in Merrybent, as well as Hummersknott, run on two liquids; your motor takes just your diesel. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas and cleans it.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is fuelled at the petrol pump all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less often, normally from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
Hummersknott: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things coming up together.
On a driveway off Wycliffe Way before work, or in the car park outside The Model T heading home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it is empty, limp mode follows.
Then, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old car — since a hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
Lastly, the spout fits: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in just as easily, and once the pour starts, no part halts it. Mowden or the middle of Hummersknott: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
A few seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you pour anything, on a drive in Cockerton or a forecourt around Hummersknott.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- On plenty of cars, the size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside your fuel flap: many motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Can't find it next to your diesel inlet? Then look beneath the bonnet or inside your boot — the owner's manual says which.
- Check with 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 Darlington.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
Anywhere across Durham the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time in hand — not rushing on the side of St Giles Close.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, but it works.
- The diesel cap remains on. When both sit under a flap, confirm it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Discover at the second or third step that the bottle went into the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Stage five is out.
Hummersknott: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Short list, then. Top of that: the motor stays off. Do not switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel won't weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of the tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help roll the car away from the pump if you're at a forecourt — the JET, the Shell or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Hummersknott.
Where your engine has been run already, stop somewhere safe then switch it off. Leave the A66(M) — under a mile out of Hummersknott — at the first junction. Distance counts — a quick hop across Hummersknott is a smaller job than heading under 25 miles to Durham — so tell us about how far it went.
Hummersknott: what happens when our engineers turn up
By Mowden Infant School, close to Tees Cottage Pumping Station - Visitor Centre and Gas Engine House or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Which liquid went in, the quantity, and whether it ran: we ask because those replies set both work and price. The price is given over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Then that tank is emptied and the fuel system flushed thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and none of it clears out by itself. Hence it counts more. A test is last: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and your filter is flushed or changed if necessary. Then our engineers fire it up and check it runs properly before we go.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your engine hasn't run take roughly half an hour after our technicians arrive. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Hummersknott itself
Hummersknott is a suburban area situated on the riverside in County Durham, with a mix of housing types dominated by detached homes. Hummersknott has a population of around 3244 people and is located near other local places such as Mowden and Low Coniscliffe. Hummersknott sits at an elevation of approximately 50 metres above sea level, within the wider North East region of England. Hummersknott is also relatively close to the city of Durham, which is about 17.7 miles away.
AdBlue drains about Hummersknott, and Durham beyond
Low Coniscliffe and Blackwell are among the places near Hummersknott, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, throughout DL postcodes. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting DL3 8.
Shifting your car isn't needed. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Tees Cottage Pumping Station - Beam Engine House, a lay-by on the way to Broken Scar Picnic Area, a drive. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Elm Ridge Methodist Church, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Hummersknott people: the short version
Pour no AdBlue till you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere across Durham, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — so leave the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103.