Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Low Etherley: Why It Happens
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case put this page down a moment, keep the ignition and engine off, then call 0333 366 0103. Around Low Etherley, catching it before the engine runs normally leaves a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Diesel feeds the engine — but many modern diesels driven around Low Etherley and Toft Hill hold a second liquid as well. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to fresh them, from a separate tank.
There is a filler for every tank. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on a lot of motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Diesel gets filled at every filling station visit, week in, week out. Much less regularly, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. It is in that gap that the mistake happens.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur in Low Etherley?
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
Hurry comes from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a driveway off Bank Well, or on the way home in the car park at The Three Tuns.
The old car's filler is where your hand reaches — but a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That is a second thing: a strange motor.
No part halts the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It takes a few seconds, whether in Phoenix Row or bang in the centre of Low Etherley.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Look at these first, at a forecourt in Low Etherley or a driveway out in Witton Park. Seconds, that's all.
- Position can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually do not.
- The size. On plenty of motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of vehicles. Check for it.
- The handbook shows where it lives if your filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver will know. Check as you collect a rental or fleet car — at Bishop Auckland's car park, say — rather than once the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Durham that is.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time to spare — not rushing on the side of Bankwell Drive.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, yet it works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Do not go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Low Etherley?
Brief list, then. Top of that: the engine stays off. Keep the ignition off too, because on many diesels it alone runs your pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
Ask the attendants to help push the vehicle clear of the pump if you're on a forecourt — the JET, the Tesco or somewhere else. On your own drive in Low Etherley? So the car stays where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. Low Etherley sits under 10 miles from the A1(M); on it, use the first exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Durham, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Low Etherley.
Our arrival in Low Etherley, and what happens next
The van reaches the vehicle wherever it has come to rest — your own drive, beside St Cuthbert, or outside Toft Hill Primary School. The replies settle this work and the price, so we ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. That price is given over the phone, before any van leaves.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither clears away by itself. Hence it counts more. After the fuel filter is flushed — or renewed, if needed — fresh diesel goes in, and then your vehicle is tested. After that our technicians start the car and make sure it runs properly before we leave.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after we get there, provided your engine has not run — and the pumps we use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet at night beside a house. Nothing in advance; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Low Etherley, briefly
Low Etherley is a village in County Durham, situated near the lakeside and surrounded by rolling countryside. Low Etherley has a population of around 830 people and is characterized by its predominance of terraced housing. Low Etherley sits at an elevation of 168 metres, approximately 10.8 miles from the city of Durham. Low Etherley is also close to nearby places such as Phoenix Row, High Etherley, and Woodside.
AdBlue drains across Durham, Low Etherley included
Being a village, Low Etherley has the same vans as nearby areas — High Etherley, Woodside — right across DL postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Fastest of all: quote a DL14 0 postcode to the van.
The vehicle does not need to shift. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Toft Hill and Etherley Community Centre, a lay-by on the way to Quarry Wood, a drive. Assuming won't help at the back of Etherley Methodist Church, on a border, or anywhere awkward to pin down; phone and check.
In short, for Low Etherley drivers
Always, the cap; after that, the tip. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it stands, anywhere across Durham: keep the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.