AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Newtown: Why It Occurs and How to Stop It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and your ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. In Newtown, catching it before your engine turns normally leaves a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Not one fluid but two: that is how many newer diesels around Newtown and Corbiehall run, with diesel for the motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust gas 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 the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up constantly. The AdBlue side is topped up far less regularly, normally from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake grows in that gap between them.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen in Newtown?
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
On a driveway off Clydesdale Street before work, or in the car park at Newtown Bar heading home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car warns you, and if it's gone, limp mode follows.
Next, your hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old car — since a rental car, a new motor or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
A spouted bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once begun, keeps on. Grahamsdyke or the heart of Newtown: it takes the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Boness or a forecourt in Newtown, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps are often blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally do not.
- Many motors fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on plenty of vehicles. Look for it.
- The handbook says where it is if the filler isn't next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Linlithgow, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Falkirk that is.
- Switch off once parked — level ground, engine stopped, and never in a rush by Lothian Crescent at the roadside.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, but it does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. When both sit under a flap, make sure it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then check once more — making sure your diesel filler stayed shut throughout. After that, start the car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Never go on to stage five.
Newtown: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Do not start the motor: that's how the short order of things starts. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is sucked from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it is the Esso or the Hastons of Bo'ness, ask the attendants to help roll the car away from the pump. If you are on your own drive in Newtown, leave the vehicle where it stands.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. On the M9, under 3 miles from Newtown, that means the next junction. A short hop across Newtown is a smaller job than a run towards Dunfermline, under 10 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our technicians get there in Newtown, what takes place?
Wherever the car came to rest, be it by the local primary school, near St Catharine's Church or at home, our van travels to it. Our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and if it has run, because the answers decide the work and our price. You hear that price by phone, before anybody sets off.
Emptying your tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes out by itself. That is why it counts more. Testing is last: before that, clean diesel is added, and the filter is cleaned or changed as needed. The engine is fired up next and checked to confirm it runs properly, all before we head off.
If the motor hasn't run, the majority of 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 at night. The insurer will ask for an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Newtown and where it is
Newtown is a suburban area in Falkirk, situated near the coast at an elevation of 67 metres, with views out to the Firth of Forth. Newtown sits close to the nearby settlements of Grahamsdyke, Mingle, and Borrowstoun, and is approximately 6.9 miles from Dunfermline. Newtown has a population of around 4910 people, predominantly residing in flats. Newtown is located about 342 miles northwest of London, in the central lowlands of Scotland.
AdBlue drains around Newtown, and Falkirk beyond
Being a new town, Newtown shares its vans surrounding areas — Mingle, Borrowstoun — all the way across EH postcodes and the surrounding area around them. A postcode starting EH51 9 gets our van to you fastest.
Moving your car is not needed. Wherever it stands — beside St Mary of the Assumption Church, in a lay-by en route to Douglas Park, on a drive — that is where it gets emptied. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Craigmailen United Free Church, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Newtown drivers: the short version
First, the cap; after that, the pour. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Leave the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, throughout Falkirk.