Old Keith: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Keep your motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Caught before the engine runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Old Keith. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Many modern diesels on the roads round Old Keith and Denhead carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Different tanks, different fillers. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty more place both together under one flap. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. The slip lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen in Old Keith?
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Haste follows from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a driveway off Police Lane, or heading home in the car park at the pub in the village.
Then, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old motor — because a rental car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip after it has started. It's seconds, be it out in Keith or right in the centre of Old Keith.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
A few seconds is all these take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Newmill or a forecourt around Old Keith.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- The size. On plenty of motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Look inside the fuel flap: many cars have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park at Keith? Ask whoever drove the car last before leaving, rather than once the light goes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
The day the light goes on, anywhere in Moray, follow this routine.
- Not in a rush on the side of Union Street, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off properly.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you've located your filler and read the cap.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, shut the cap and check a second time that your diesel cap was never opened off.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Never go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Old Keith?
Brief list, then. First: the engine stays unstarted. Keep the ignition off too, because on plenty of diesels it by itself starts the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
At a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, another forecourt nearby or any other — the staff will usually help roll the vehicle away, if you ask. At home in Old Keith? Then the vehicle remains put.
Already run? Pull over once it's safe, then turn off. On the M90, over 50 miles from Old Keith, that means the next junction. Mileage counts — a short hop across Old Keith is a smaller job than heading under 50 miles to Aberdeen — so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival in Old Keith, and what occurs next
By the local primary school, close to Keith library or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our technicians come to it. What liquid was put in, the amount, and if it ran: our technicians ask because those replies decide both work and price. No one sets off before you have heard the price by phone.
The system is then flushed thoroughly, once the tank is drained. 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 does not wash out on its own. The filter flushed or, where it must be, swapped; fresh diesel in; and then a test of your vehicle. The engine is started next and tested to make sure it runs smoothly, all before our engineers head off.
If the motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. While we travel, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Old Keith itself
Old Keith is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Moray, with a mix of semi-detached housing and other residential properties. Old Keith sits at an elevation of 146 metres, near the town of Keith and other nearby places such as Fife Keith and Drum. Old Keith is located approximately 42 miles from Aberdeen, the nearest city, and is part of the wider Moray region. Old Keith has a population of around 2938 people, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains across Moray, Old Keith included
As a residential suburb, Old Keith shares its vans nearby areas — Fife Keith, Drum — right across AB postcodes and the wider area around them. Give a postcode beginning AB55 5, and the van arrives fastest.
Your car doesn't need to shift. The drain takes place on the spot, whether a drive, a street near 6th Batalion Gordon Highlanders Memorial, or a lay-by on the way to War Memorial Garden. Tricky to pin down, like the back of James Taylor Memorial Fountain? Close to a border? Asking is better than assuming, so ring.
The short version for Old Keith people
Always, the cap; after that, the pour. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Leave it switched off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across Moray.