Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Seaburn
Pause here for a moment when the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Seaburn. Reading in advance? Then what follows explains how it happens and how to prevent it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads around Seaburn and Whitburn 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.
Each tank has its own filler. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place the two side by side behind one flap. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. Seldom filled, AdBlue usually goes in from a bottle, poured by a driver who must stop and think which cap to use. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank happen in Seaburn?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Hurry comes from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a drive off Prince's Avenue, or on the way home in the car park outside The Promenade.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once started, keeps on. It takes a few seconds, be it out in South Bents or bang in the centre of Seaburn.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt around Seaburn or a drive over in Monkwearmouth. Seconds, no more.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally isn't. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- Many vehicles give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many cars have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park outside the nearest station? Ask the person who drove the car last before you set off, 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 Tyne and Wear that is.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time to spare — never rushing on the side of Kings Avenue.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, but it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Find at the second or third stage that the bottle went in the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Leave out stage five entirely.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Seaburn?
Short list, then. First: the engine stays off. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
The attendants at Morrisons, Asda or any forecourt will normally help pushing the car clear if you ask. Your own driveway in Seaburn is the place it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your motor has already run. On the A194(M), under 10 miles from Seaburn, that means the next exit. A short hop across Seaburn is a smaller job than a run towards Sunderland, under 3 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Seaburn: what occurs when our technicians get there
Anywhere the vehicle came to rest, whether outside Fulwell Junior School, beside Fulwell Parish War Memorial or on your own drive, the van travels to it. Both the work and the quote rest on three answers — what fluid, which quantity, and whether it's run — so our technicians ask. No one heads out until you have heard the quote by phone.
Then that tank is emptied and the fuel system cleaned thoroughly. Much more than with petrol, it counts here: the crystals build up, some metals corrode, and nothing clears out on its own, no matter how long it is left. A test comes at the end: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and your filter is flushed or changed if necessary. Before we leave, our technicians start the car and make sure that it's running correctly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour once our engineers arrive, as long as your engine has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet at night beside a house. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. It is worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Seaburn and where it is
Seaburn is a coastal suburban area in Tyne and Wear, situated near the city of Sunderland. Seaburn lies at a low elevation of around 6 metres, close to the sea and adjacent to nearby places such as South Bents and Fulwell. Seaburn has a population of approximately 2976 people, living in predominantly semi-detached housing. Seaburn is located about 2.3 miles from Sunderland and 242.3 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Tyne and Wear, Seaburn included
As a residential suburb, Seaburn has the same vans as nearby places — Fulwell, Roker — all the way through SR postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. A postcode starting SR6 8 gets the van to you fastest.
Moving the car isn't needed. We drain it where it is — a side street near Saint Andrew's, a lay-by on the way to Seaburn Park, a driveway. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Fulwell Community Library? By a border? Checking is better than guessing, so phone.
For Seaburn people, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave it off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it stands, anywhere across Tyne and Wear.