Sacriston: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Leave the motor and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. In Sacriston, catching it before your engine runs usually leaves a drain and a thorough flush on the spot. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Many modern diesels around Tan Hills, like those in Sacriston, carry on two fluids; the motor gets just your diesel. The exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to clean them, from its own tank.
Separate tanks, different fillers. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is fuelled at the petrol pump all the time. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, tipped by a driver who must stop and think which cap to use. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Sacriston: how it takes place
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the vehicle, and running dry leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Witton Road, perhaps outside Crossroads Inn on the way home that evening.
Unfamiliar vehicles are next, as well. Hire cars, new motors and company motors place their fillers in new places, and the hand goes for the cap used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as easily, and once the tip starts, nothing stops it. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Sacriston or out in Witton Gilbert.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Edmondsley or a forecourt around Sacriston, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of vehicles mark which belongs in each inlet just there.
- The handbook shows where it lives when your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the 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 Durham, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
Wherever across Durham the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Switch off once parked — flat ground, motor stopped, and not rushed by Front Street on the verge.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, yet it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave it on.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the car, close the cap and check again that the diesel cap never opened off.
Find at the second or third stage that the bottle went in the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Don't go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Sacriston already?
Short order, then. First: the engine stays off. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the vehicle on. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is pulled from.
Ask the attendants to help push the car away from the pump if you are at a forecourt — the Gulf, the Plawsworth Service Station or anywhere else. On your own drive around Sacriston? So your car stays put.
Already run? Pull over when it's safe, then switch off. Come off the A1(M) — under 5 miles out of Sacriston — at the next exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Durham, under 5 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Sacriston.
What happens when our engineers arrive around Sacriston
Outside Sacriston Academy, close to The Pulse or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Both the work and our quote depend on three answers — what liquid, what amount, and if it has run — so we ask. You get that quote on the phone, before anyone heads out.
Then the tank is emptied and the fuel system flushed thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. The filter flushed or, where it must be, replaced; fresh diesel in; then a test of your vehicle. Next our technicians start the car and confirm it runs smoothly before leaving.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour after we arrive, as long as the engine has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. Your insurer will ask for an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. It is worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Sacriston
Sacriston is a village in County Durham, situated on the banks of the River Wear, approximately 3 miles from the city of Durham. Sacriston has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are the most common, and the village is set in a relatively low-lying area at an elevation of 154 metres. Sacriston is part of a network of communities along the River Wear, including nearby Witton Gilbert, Nettlesworth, and Kimblesworth. Sacriston is located in the north east of England, about 237 miles north of London.
AdBlue drains around Sacriston and across Durham
Sacriston is a village, and our vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Nettlesworth and Kimblesworth among them, across the DH postcode area. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting DH7 6.
The vehicle stays where it is. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Sacriston War Memorial, a lay-by on the way to Fulforth Jubilee Park, a drive. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of The Fulforth Centre.
In short, for Sacriston drivers
Read the cap before you pour. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it wherever it stands, anywhere around Durham: switch the car off then call 0333 366 0103.