Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Macduff
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Normally, when the engine has not turned, it's emptied and thoroughly rinsed where the car sits in Macduff. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads around Macduff and Inverboyndie carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
There's a filler for every tank. Other vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have both side by side behind one flap. The diesel side is topped up at the pump all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less commonly, usually from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
Macduff: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the vehicle, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Gellymill Street, or outside The Old Moray on the way home after work.
Then the car is strange. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Lastly, the bottle fits: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in just as easily, and once the tip begins, nothing halts it. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Macduff or out in Banff.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A few seconds is all these take — so check them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Longmanhill or a forecourt in Macduff.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually isn't. Read it instead of going by position.
- On many vehicles, size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on many vehicles. Look for it.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at the nearest station.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Aberdeenshire that is.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time in hand — not rushing on the side of School Lane.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, yes, but it does the trick.
- The two under a single flap? Then make sure the lid on your diesel filler is still closed before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Step five is out.
Macduff: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Short list, then. Top of it: your motor remains off. Do not switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of that tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it is the the nearest petrol station or the Shell, ask the attendants to help roll your car clear of the pump. On your own drive around Macduff? So the vehicle stays where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. Come off the M90 — over 50 miles out of Macduff — at the next junction. A short hop across Macduff is a smaller job than a run towards Aberdeen, under 50 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival in Macduff, and what happens next
Outside the local primary school, near Macduff Town Hall or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our technicians come to it. We ask what got in, about how much, and if it's run, since those answers settle the work and the price. You get that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out.
After that: a drain, then a full flush of the entire system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that counts more here than with petrol. Once the fuel filter is cleaned — or replaced, if needed — fresh diesel goes in, and finally your car is tested. Your engine is fired up next and tested to be sure it runs properly, all before our technicians head off.
If the engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. No money in advance; you settle up on the day. At the end, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Macduff
Macduff is a coastal town in Aberdeenshire, situated on the north-east coast of Scotland, near the towns of Banff and the rural areas of Montcoffer Crofts and Silverhillocks. Macduff has a population of around 3873 people, living in predominantly semi-detached housing, and is located at a low elevation of 17 metres above sea level. Macduff is also relatively distant from major cities like London, being around 436 miles away, but is within commuting distance of Aberdeen, which is 38.9 miles away.
AdBlue drains around Macduff, and Aberdeenshire beyond
Macduff is a coastal town, and the vans that cover it also work the places near it, Montcoffer Crofts and Silverhillocks among them, across the AB postcode area. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting AB44 1.
Moving the car is not needed. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street close to Macduff Arts Centre, a lay-by on the way to The Knowes, a driveway. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Bodie Fountain, ring and ask rather than guessing.
In short, for Macduff motorists
Tip nothing till you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave the car off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it sits, anywhere around Aberdeenshire.