Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Newlands: Why It Happens
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then set this page down for now, keep your ignition and engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Newlands. Not happened yet? Further down, the page explains the reasons it happens and the ways to prevent it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Many newer diesels around Hillpark, like those in Newlands, carry on two fluids; your engine takes only your diesel. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to fresh them, from a separate tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Other motors put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have both side by side behind one flap. Diesel goes in on every filling station visit, week in, week out. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs in Newlands
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Woodburn Road before work, or in the car park outside Quaich on the way home.
Next, the hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old motor — since a rental car, a new motor or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
Nothing stops the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it happens in Auldhouse or the middle of Newlands, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Whether a Newlands forecourt or a drive over in Mansewood, spend a couple of seconds on these before any is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually is not. Read it instead of going by position.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — many motors show which belongs in which filler right there.
- The handbook says where it lives when your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Langside, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
Wherever in Glasgow City the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Turn off after you park — flat ground, motor off, and never rushed beside Tavistock Drive at the roadside.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the vehicle on.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and check again — confirm your diesel filler stayed closed the whole time. After that, start the vehicle.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Step five stays off limits.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Newlands?
The short order of things, beginning with no starting the motor. Leave your ignition off as well, because on many diesels switching it on alone starts the pump. Diluting it with more diesel won't work, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom rather than mixing — and that's where your fuel is pulled from.
On a forecourt — Morrisons, Shell or any other — the staff will usually help push your car clear, if you ask. At home around Newlands? So your car stays where it is.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Newlands lies under 3 miles from the M77; there, take the next exit. A short hop across Newlands is a smaller job than a run towards Glasgow, under 5 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Newlands: what occurs when we get there
Outside the local primary school, near Auldhouse Community Church or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, we come to it. Both the work and the price rest on three replies — which fluid, what quantity, and whether it's run — so our engineers ask. You get that price on the phone, before anybody sets off.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and none of that washes away by itself. That is why it matters more. After the fuel filter has been flushed — or renewed, if required — clean diesel is added, and then your car gets tested. Next our technicians fire it up and make sure it runs correctly before we leave.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine has not run need roughly half an hour after our technicians arrive. No money upfront; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. It is worth checking your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Newlands and where it is
Newlands is a suburban area in Glasgow City, situated on the banks of the River Cart at an elevation of around 37 metres. Newlands is located approximately 3.8 miles from Glasgow city centre and is surrounded by nearby places such as Auldhouse, Merrylee, and Muirend. Newlands has a population of around 6270 people and is predominantly composed of flat-type housing.
Newlands and Glasgow City: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout G postcodes, the vans that cover Newlands — a residential suburb — work the nearby locations too, Muirend and Merrylee among them. Give a postcode that starts G43 2, and the van gets there fastest.
Moving the vehicle is not needed. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Newlands Park, a side street close to St. Margaret's Scottish Episcopal Church: our engineers drain the car where it is. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Newlands Lawn Tennis Club, ring and ask instead of assuming.
For Newlands drivers, the short version
Tip no AdBlue till you have read the cap. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it stands, anywhere around Glasgow City: switch the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103.