AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Kimblesworth: How It Occurs and How to Stop It
Pause here a minute when the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Kimblesworth. Reading before the event? Then the rest explains how it comes about and what to prevent it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Diesel goes to the motor — yet plenty of modern diesels seen round Kimblesworth and Plawsworth hold a second liquid 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.
There's a filler on every tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the layout on many vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. Seldom filled, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, tipped by a driver who has to stop and think which cap it needs. It's in the gap that the error lives.
Kimblesworth: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
Haste follows from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off East Parade, or on the way home in the car park outside Red Lion.
Unfamiliar motors are next, too. Rentals, new vehicles and company motors put their fillers differently, and the hand goes for the cap used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in as easily, and once the tip begins, no part stops it. Tan Hills or the heart of Kimblesworth: it is the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Pity Me or a forecourt around Kimblesworth, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue ones are often blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally do not.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside the fuel flap: plenty of cars carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by your diesel cap, it's 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 — if you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Chester-Le-Street.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
For the day the light comes on — wherever you are around Durham — a routine to follow.
- Turn off after you park — level ground, motor off, and never in a rush beside The Firs at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Find at stage two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? So stop just there. Never go on to stage five.
Kimblesworth: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Don't start your engine: that's where the short order of things starts. Leave your ignition off too, because on many diesels switching it on by itself runs the fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
On a forecourt — Plawsworth Service Station, Sainsbury's or any other — the attendants will normally help push the vehicle clear, if you ask. If you are on your own driveway in Kimblesworth, leave the car where it is.
Already started? Pull over once it is sensible, then switch off. Kimblesworth lies under 3 miles from the A1(M); on it, use the first junction. Distance matters — a short hop across Kimblesworth makes a smaller job than driving under 3 miles to Durham — so say roughly how far it went.
Our arrival in Kimblesworth, and what happens next
Outside Nettlesworth Primary School, close to St Philip and St James or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our engineers come to it. The answers determine this work and our quote, and so our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. On the phone call itself, you hear our price — before dispatch.
The system is then cleaned thoroughly, after the tank is emptied. Much more than with petrol, it counts here: crystals form, some metals corrode, and nothing clears away on its own, no matter how long it sits. After your filter is cleaned — or replaced, if required — clean diesel is added, and then your car is tested. We don't leave until it has been started and is running smoothly.
If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. No money upfront; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to check yours.
About Kimblesworth
Kimblesworth is a small village situated on the riverside in County Durham, with a population of around 541 people. Kimblesworth sits at an elevation of 101 metres, close to the nearby city of Durham, which is approximately 2.9 miles away. Kimblesworth is characterised by its semi-detached housing and is near to other local places such as Tan Hills and Plawsworth Gate. Kimblesworth is located in the North East region of England, about 236.8 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Durham, Kimblesworth included
As a village, Kimblesworth shares its vans surrounding places — Plawsworth Gate, Nettlesworth — right across DH postcodes and the wider area beyond. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting DH2 3.
Shifting the vehicle is not necessary. Wherever it sits — beside Nettlesworth Community Centre, in a layby heading to Abbey Road Playing Field, on a drive — that's where it is drained. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Marks & Spencer, ring and ask instead of guessing.
The short version for Kimblesworth drivers
Pour nothing until you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave it off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it waits, anywhere in Durham.