Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Scotswood
Stop here a minute when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. Usually, if your motor hasn't run, it is emptied and fully rinsed where the car is around Scotswood. The rest of this page covers why it occurs and how to ensure it does not — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Not one liquid but two: that's what plenty of newer diesels near Scotswood and Blaydon Haughs carry, with diesel feeding the engine. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to clean it, from its own tank.
Different tanks, different fillers. Some vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have the two side by side behind one flap. Topping up your diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally goes in out of a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think which filler to use. The slip lives in that gap.
Scotswood: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
Hurry comes from the warning. The vehicle tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off Langham Road, or on the way home in the car park at The Skiff Inn.
Then the car is strange. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once begun, keeps on. It's seconds, whether out in Benwell or right in the heart of Scotswood.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Denton Burn or a forecourt around Scotswood, check these. They take a few seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it rather than going by position.
- On plenty of vehicles, the size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — many cars mark which goes in which inlet right there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler is if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Blaydon.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
Anywhere around Tyne and Wear the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Briar Place.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, perhaps, yet it works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Before starting the car, close the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap was never opened off.
Find at the second or third step that AdBlue went into the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Don't carry on to stage five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Scotswood?
The short order of things, beginning with no starting the motor. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch it on. Topping up with diesel won't dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of the tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Gulf, BP or another forecourt will normally help to push your car clear when asked. Your own driveway in Scotswood is where it stays.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. The next junction is where to come off when you're on the Central Motorway East, under 3 miles from Scotswood. A short hop across Scotswood is a smaller job than a run towards Newcastle upon Tyne, under 5 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
Scotswood: what occurs when our engineers turn up
The van reaches the car wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, near St Margaret's Church and Parish Centre, or by Bridgewater Primary School. Both the work and the price depend on three answers — which fluid, which quantity, and whether it's run — so we ask. No one sets off before you've had our price over the phone.
Draining your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Next we fire it up and confirm it runs properly before leaving.
Unstarted cars usually mean a half-hour visit after the moment we arrive. The kit is safe on a busy forecourt, and quiet enough for a residential street late at night. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Scotswood, briefly
Scotswood is a suburban area located on the banks of the River Tyne in north-east England, sitting at an elevation of 41 metres. Scotswood is situated approximately 3.1 miles west of Newcastle upon Tyne city centre, near neighbouring areas such as Benwell and Old Benwell. Scotswood has a population of around 3447 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Scotswood is part of the larger Tyne and Wear conurbation, with London around 247.8 miles to the south.
AdBlue drains across Tyne and Wear, Scotswood included
Over NE postcodes, the teams that cover Scotswood — a residential suburb — work the surrounding spots too, Bells Close and Old Benwell among them. Quickest of all: give a NE15 6 postcode for the van.
Moving your car is not necessary. Draining takes place right there, be it a driveway, a road by Broadmead Way Evangelical Church, or a lay-by towards Scotswood Garden. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of TeamSport Newcastle.
The short version for Scotswood motorists
Before you tip, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around Tyne and Wear, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — and so leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.