AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Kirktown: Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case put this page aside for now, leave your ignition and engine off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Kirktown. Not happened yet? Below, the rest of the page explains the reasons it takes place and the ways to prevent it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
No single fluid but two: that is what plenty of modern diesels near Kirktown and Green Hill carry, with diesel feeding your engine. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, and there a spray cleans the gas.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on many vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Diesel gets filled on each filling station call-out, again and again. Much less regularly, the AdBlue side is filled — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs around Kirktown
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
Haste comes from the warning. The vehicle tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a drive off Kirk Street, or heading home in the car park outside Mambo's.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Third, the spout fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in as readily, and after the pour begins, nothing halts it. It's seconds, whether out in Peterhead or bang in the heart of Kirktown.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt around Kirktown or a driveway out in Keith Inch. A few seconds, that's all.
- Read the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many motors have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- Cannot see it beside your diesel filler? In that case check below the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook will say which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at the nearest station, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Aberdeenshire that is.
- Switch off once parked — level ground, engine off, and never in a rush by St. Peter Street on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- Both behind a single flap? So confirm the cap on your diesel filler stays shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Don't carry on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Kirktown already?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with no starting the motor. Keep your ignition off too, since on many diesels switching it on alone starts your fuel pump. Diluting it with extra diesel won't work, since AdBlue settles to the bottom rather than blending — and that is where the fuel is sucked from.
The staff at Morrisons, Esso or any forecourt will normally lend a hand pushing the vehicle away if you ask. Your own driveway in Kirktown is the place it stays.
When your motor has run by now, pull over safely and switch the vehicle off. Come off the M90 — over 50 miles out of Kirktown — at the first exit. About how far did it go? Hopping across Kirktown is less a job than a trip of under 50 miles towards Aberdeen, so tell us.
What occurs when our engineers get there around Kirktown
Our van comes to the car wherever it stopped — your own driveway, beside St. Mary's Catholic Church, or outside the local primary school. Those answers settle this work and our quote, and so our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run. On the call itself, you are told our quote — ahead of dispatch.
After that: draining, then a full flush of the whole system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes out by itself. That is why it matters more. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Next our technicians fire it up and make sure it runs smoothly before we go.
If the motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents your insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, have a look at your policy; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Kirktown and where it is
Kirktown is a coastal suburban area in Aberdeenshire, situated near the North Sea and approximately 27 miles from Aberdeen. Kirktown has a relatively low elevation of around 11 metres, and its proximity to the coast influences its local climate. Kirktown is part of a larger network of communities, including nearby Peterhead and Roanheads, and is characterized by predominantly flat-type housing.
AdBlue drains about Kirktown, and Aberdeenshire beyond
Throughout AB postcodes, the vans that cover Kirktown — a residential suburb — work the nearby places too, Grange Gardens and Roanheads among them. A postcode starting AB42 1 gets our van to you fastest.
The vehicle stays where it is. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to West Links, a side street close to 5th Battalion Gordon Highlanders WW1 War Memorial: we drain it where it is. Assuming doesn't help at the back of York Street Hall, on a border, or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and ask.
For Kirktown motorists, the short version
Pour no AdBlue till you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Aberdeenshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — and so leave it off then phone 0333 366 0103.