Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Mossend: Why It Happens
Leave the motor and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Usually, when your motor hasn't run, it's drained and thoroughly purged where your car is around Mossend. Reading in advance? Then the rest explains how it happens and what to stop it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to the motor — but many newer diesels seen about Mossend and Bellshill hold a second fluid as well. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
There's a filler on each tank. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Topping up your diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. Far less frequently, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur in Mossend?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Main Street before work, or in the car park at The Derby Inn on the way home.
New-to-you cars are second, as well. Hire cars, new vehicles and company motors put their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap it used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once begun, carries on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Mossend or out in Milnwood.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt in Mossend or a drive over in Shirrel. A few seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually isn't. Read it rather than going by position.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Check for it.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by the diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Bellshill? Check with whoever drove it last before leaving, rather than once the light goes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
For the day the light comes on — anywhere you are in North Lanarkshire — a routine to follow.
- Not in a rush on the side of Hope Street, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park then switch off first.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — once you've located your filler and read the cap.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting your car, shut the cap and look again that the diesel cap was never came off.
Find at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop just there. Skip step five entirely.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Mossend?
The short order of things, beginning with not starting the motor. The fuel pump runs on many diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — so leave it off. Filling up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of that tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the Morrisons or the Tesco, ask the attendants to help push your car clear of the petrol pump. If you're on your own drive around Mossend, leave the vehicle where it sits.
Where the motor has run by now, stop somewhere safe and turn it off. Mossend lies under 3 miles from the M8; on it, use the first junction. A short hop across Mossend is a smaller job than a run towards Glasgow, under 10 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
What occurs when our engineers turn up in Mossend
By the local primary school, near Holy Family or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, we come to it. Those replies decide the work and the price, so our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. You get that quote by phone, before anyone sets off.
Then your tank is emptied and the fuel system rinsed thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. A test comes at the end: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and your filter is flushed or replaced as needed. Then we start the engine and make sure it runs correctly before we go.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour after we get there, as long as your engine hasn't run — and the pumps we use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet after dark beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to check yours.
About Mossend, for a moment
Mossend is a suburban area situated on the riverside in North Lanarkshire, with a relatively low elevation of 78 metres. Mossend lies approximately 9 miles east of Glasgow and is part of the wider Glasgow urban area. Mossend is characterized by its predominantly flat-type housing and is close to nearby places such as Milnwood and Hattonrigg. Mossend has a population of around 4185 residents.
AdBlue drains across North Lanarkshire, Mossend included
Mossend is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the towns near it, Hattonrigg and Wester Holytown among them, across the ML postcode area. Fastest of all: quote a ML4 1 postcode to our van.
Your car stays where it is. Wherever it stands — beside The Salvation Army - Bellshill, in a layby en route to King Georges Field, at home — that's where it is drained. Tricky to pin down, like the back of War Memorial? By a county line? Checking beats guessing, and so ring.
In short, for Mossend drivers
Read the cap before you tip. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Keep the vehicle switched off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, throughout North Lanarkshire.