How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Roadmeetings
Pause reading a minute when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, done just where the car stands around Roadmeetings, is usually all it takes when found before your engine runs. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Diesel feeds your motor — yet many modern diesels driven about Roadmeetings and Braidwood hold another fluid as well. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to clean it, from its own tank.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Some motors put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place both side by side behind one flap. Diesel gets filled on every filling station visit, again and again. The AdBlue side is topped up far less commonly, usually from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens in Roadmeetings
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off High Meadow before work, or in the car park outside the pub in the village on the way home.
Unfamiliar motors come next, too. Hire cars, new cars and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it takes place in Crawforddyke or the middle of Roadmeetings, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these first, on a forecourt in Roadmeetings or a drive over in Kilncadzow. Seconds, no more.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually isn't. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Check for it.
- Can't find it next to the diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or inside the boot — the owner's manual will say which.
- The previous driver will know. Ask as you collect a rental or company car — from Carluke's car park, perhaps — not once the warning appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across South Lanarkshire that is.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Forest Kirk.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you've found the filler and read the cap.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two share a flap, confirm it's closed before lifting the bottle.
- Stop when the tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour slowly through its built-in spout.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Find at the second or third stage that the bottle went in the diesel filler? That is where you stop. Leave out step five entirely.
Roadmeetings: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Do not start the motor: that's how the short order of things begins. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition goes on — and so keep it off. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it's the Tesco or the BP, ask the attendants to help push the vehicle away from the pump. Your own drive around Roadmeetings is where it stays.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Roadmeetings sits under 10 miles from the M74; on it, take the first exit. Distance counts — a short hop across Roadmeetings makes a smaller job than driving under 25 miles towards Glasgow — so tell us about how far it went.
What happens when our technicians get there around Roadmeetings
We come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside the local primary school, close to John Cumming Stadium or on your own driveway. Both the work and our quote rest on three replies — which liquid, what quantity, and if it has run — so our technicians ask. You get that quote by phone, before anyone heads out.
Then your tank is drained and the fuel system purged thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither clears out unaided. That is why it matters more. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Before we leave, our engineers fire it up and make sure that it is running correctly.
If the motor has not 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 at night. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both once this job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Roadmeetings itself
Roadmeetings is a suburban area situated on the riverside in South Lanarkshire, with a mix of detached housing and a population of around 3743 residents. Roadmeetings sits at an elevation of 229 metres, near the towns of Crawforddyke, Yieldshields, and Carluke, and is located approximately 18.8 miles from Glasgow. Roadmeetings is characterized by its residential nature and its proximity to the river, which runs through the area. Roadmeetings is also relatively distant from major cities like London, being around 328.4 miles away.
AdBlue drains around Roadmeetings and across South Lanarkshire
Being a residential suburb, Roadmeetings shares its vans nearby places — Yieldshields, Carluke — all the way across ML postcodes and the wider area beyond. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting ML8 4.
The car does not need to move. Anywhere it stands — near Carluke Leisure Centre, on a lay-by heading to Hillhead Wood, on a drive — that's where it gets drained. Tricky to explain, like the back of Carluke Library? Close to a county line? Checking beats assuming, so ring.
For Roadmeetings people, the short version
Pour no AdBlue till you have read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it stands, anywhere across South Lanarkshire: switch the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103.