Seaton: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Pause here a minute if the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Around Seaton, catching it before the engine turns normally leaves draining and a thorough flush on the spot. The remainder of this page covers why it takes place and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Not one liquid but two: that is what many newer diesels near Seaton and Stainburn carry, with diesel for 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.
There's a filler for every tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the arrangement on a lot of vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in the boot instead. The diesel side is topped up at the pump all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less regularly, normally from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens around Seaton
It's seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Main Road before work, or in the car park outside Royal Oak on the way home.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing halts the tip once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Seaton or out in Low Seaton.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Siddick or a forecourt around Seaton, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- On many motors, size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many motors have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Workington, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Cumbria that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Lowca Lane.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the vehicle on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Never carry on to stage five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Seaton?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your motor. The fuel pump runs on many diesels as soon as your ignition goes on — so leave it off. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of your tank, just where fuel is taken from.
At a forecourt — Esso, BP or another — the attendants will usually help push your car clear, if you ask. Your own driveway around Seaton is the place it stays.
Where the motor has run already, stop safely then switch the vehicle off. Seaton lies under 50 miles from the M6; there, use the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Seaton is smaller a job than a run of under 50 miles towards Carlisle, and so tell us.
Seaton: what occurs when we arrive
We come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Seaton Academy, near Seaton Library or on your own driveway. The answers settle this work and the quote, and so our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and whether it has run. During the phone call itself, you are told the quote — before dispatch.
Next: draining, then a full flush of the whole system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that counts more here than with petrol. The filter cleaned or, where it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; then a test of your car. Next our technicians start the engine and check it runs smoothly before we go.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once our engineers arrive, provided your engine hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a live forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. Your insurer will ask for an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once this job is done. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Seaton itself
Seaton is a coastal village in Cumbria, situated near the city of Carlisle and overlooking the Solway Firth. Seaton has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are particularly prevalent in the area. Seaton sits at a relatively low elevation of around 50 metres above sea level, close to nearby places like Low Seaton and High Seaton. Seaton is located approximately 259 miles northwest of London, making it a relatively remote village in England.
AdBlue drains across Cumbria, Seaton included
Over CA postcodes, our teams that cover Seaton — a coastal village — work the nearby places too, Barepot and High Seaton among them. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting CA14 1.
The vehicle does not need to move. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Scarbank Wood, a side street near St Paul's: we drain the vehicle where it sits. Awkward to explain, like the back of Seaton Rangers? By a county line? Asking is better than assuming, and so phone.
The short version for Seaton people
First, the cap; after that, the pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it waits, anywhere around Cumbria.