How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Milton
Keep your engine and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out right where the car stands in Milton, is usually all it needs when found before your engine runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of current diesels on the roads round Milton and Bellsmyre carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
Each tank has its own filler. Other cars keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have both side by side under one flap. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up constantly. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less commonly. That gap is where the slip lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Milton: how it occurs
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a driveway off Milton Court before work, or in the car park outside the pub in the village on the way home: that's where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it is empty, limp mode follows.
Then your car is strange. A hire car, a new car 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 bottle fits: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in as easily, and after the tip begins, no part halts it. It takes a few seconds, be it in Bowling or bang in the centre of Milton.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Dumbarton or a forecourt in Milton, check these. They take a few seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually isn't. Read it instead of going by position.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — many motors show which belongs in each filler just there.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Bowling? Check with the person who drove it last before leaving, rather than once the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Wherever around West Dunbartonshire the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Milton Hill, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park and switch off properly.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, yes, but it works.
- Both behind a single flap? So confirm the lid on your diesel filler is still shut before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till 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.
Find during the second or third stage that the bottle went into the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Stage five stays off limits.
Milton: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting the engine. Keep your ignition off too, since on many diesels it by itself starts your fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it is the BP or the Esso, ask the staff to help roll the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. On your own drive in Milton? So the car stays put.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. The next exit is where to leave if you are on the M8, under 3 miles from Milton. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Glasgow, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Milton.
Milton: what takes place when our technicians get there
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside the local primary school, close to War Memorial or on your own drive. Both the work and the price depend on three replies — what liquid, which amount, and whether it has run — so our engineers ask. No one heads out before you've heard our quote by phone.
Then that tank is emptied and the system cleaned thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. Filter cleaned or, if it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a test of the car. We don't go until it has been started and is running smoothly.
If the engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Nothing in advance; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. It's worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Milton and where it is
Milton is a small coastal village in West Dunbartonshire, situated near the towns of Bowling and Dumbarton. Milton sits at an elevation of 33 metres, looking out over the Clyde Estuary, and is located approximately 12 miles from Glasgow. Milton is characterized by its predominantly flat-type housing, which reflects the village's history of residential development. Milton remains a quiet community with a population of around 511 people.
AdBlue drains across West Dunbartonshire, Milton included
Milton is a coastal village, and our vans that cover it also work the towns near it, Silverton and Townend among them, across the G postcode area. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting G82 2.
The car remains put. The drain happens right there, be it a driveway, a street by Dumbuie, dun site, or a lay-by on the way to Dumbuck Bowling Club. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Crannog, ring and ask rather than assuming.
For Milton people, the short version
Tip no AdBlue until you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it waits, anywhere across West Dunbartonshire.