Marley Pots: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave your engine and ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out just where your car sits around Marley Pots, is normally all it takes if caught before your motor runs. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many newer diesels around High Southwick, like those in Marley Pots, carry on two fluids; the motor gets only your diesel. The exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the fumes to clean it, from its own tank.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Many of cars have a single flap for both, while others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Filling the diesel side at the pump happens all the time. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less frequently. It is in the gap that the mistake lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Marley Pots: how it takes place
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from your car, and running dry means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Maplewood Avenue, perhaps at The Times Inn on the way home that evening.
The old car's cap is where your hand goes — yet a hire car, a new motor or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That is the second thing: a new car.
A spout-topped bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after begun, keeps on. It's seconds, whether in Witherwack or right in the centre of Marley Pots.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
A few seconds is all these take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Low Southwick or a forecourt around Marley Pots.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally aren't.
- On plenty of motors, size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of vehicles carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler is if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Seaburn, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
Wherever across Tyne and Wear the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Mulberry Avenue.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap works — once you've found the filler and read the cap.
- The two under one flap? Then confirm the cap on the diesel filler is still shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the car, shut the cap and look again that the diesel cap was never came off.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Do not go on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Marley Pots?
Do not start the motor: that's where the short order of things starts. Do not switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel won't dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of your tank, right where the fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Sainsbury's, Asda or any forecourt will normally help pushing the vehicle away when asked. At home around Marley Pots? So the vehicle stays put.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. The next exit means the place to come off when you are on the A194(M), under 5 miles from Marley Pots. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Marley Pots is smaller work than a trip of under 3 miles towards Sunderland, so say.
What happens when we turn up around Marley Pots
Anywhere your car came to rest, whether outside English Martyrs' Catholic Primary School, Sunderland, beside Holy Trinity Southwick or on your own drive, the van travels to it. Our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it's run, because the replies settle the work and our price. That price is given over the phone, before any van leaves.
After that: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Your engine is started next and tested to be sure it runs properly, all before our engineers head off.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour once our technicians arrive, as long as the motor has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. Nothing in advance; you settle up on the day. At the end, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. It is worth checking your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Marley Pots
Marley Pots is a suburban area located on the coast of Tyne and Wear, near the city of Sunderland. Marley Pots sits at an elevation of 52 metres, with views out to the North Sea, and is situated close to nearby places such as Witherwack and Carley Hill. Marley Pots is characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, typical of many suburban areas in the North East of England.
Marley Pots and Tyne and Wear: AdBlue drains across the area
Being a residential suburb, Marley Pots shares its vans nearby areas — Carley Hill, Southwick — right through SR postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Quickest of all: give a SR5 5 postcode to our van.
There's no need to shift your car. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Marley Pots Playing Field, a side street close to Southwick Youth & Community Centre: we drain it where it stands. Assuming won't help behind Sir William Mills, on a border, or anywhere awkward to describe; phone and ask.
The short version for Marley Pots motorists
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it waits, anywhere in Tyne and Wear.