AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Seatown: How It Occurs and How to Avoid It
Stop reading for a moment if the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Normally, when the engine hasn't turned, it's emptied and thoroughly rinsed where the vehicle is in Seatown. 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.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Plenty of modern diesels around Muirton, as well as Seatown, carry on two liquids; your engine gets just your diesel. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream and cleans it.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on many motors. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. The slip lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen in Seatown?
Carelessness rarely causes it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the vehicle, and letting it run out leads to limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Moray Street, perhaps at The Steamboat Inn on the way home that evening.
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 your hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, once started, carries on. It's seconds, whether in Lossiemouth or right in the heart of Seatown.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
A few seconds is all these take — so check them before you pour anything, on a drive in Windyridge or a forecourt in Seatown.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it rather than going by position.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many motors carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows which it is if the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Elgin, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Moray that is.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, engine off, and not in a rush beside Gregory Place on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two sit under a flap, make sure it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Skip stage five altogether.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Seatown?
Short order, then. Top of that: the motor remains off. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the car on. Filling up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of your tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, Esso or any other — the staff will normally help push your car away, when you ask. Your own driveway in Seatown is where it stays.
When your motor has run already, pull over safely and turn the car off. The next exit means where to leave when you're on the M90, over 50 miles from Seatown. A short hop across Seatown is a smaller job than a run towards Inverness, under 50 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
Seatown: what occurs when we get there
Wherever the car came to rest, be it by the local primary school, near Ramsay Macdonald's Birthplace Plaque or on your own drive, the van travels to it. The replies determine the work and the price, so we ask what got in, about how much, and whether it has run. You get that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out.
After that: a drain, then a full flush of the entire system. Much more than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: crystals form, some metals are attacked, and nothing clears away unaided, no matter how long it sits. The filter flushed or, if needed, replaced; clean diesel in; then a test of your vehicle. Before we go, our engineers fire it up and make sure that it's running smoothly.
If the engine has not run, the majority of 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 an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Seatown, for a moment
Seatown is a coastal suburban area in Moray, situated near the towns of Lossiemouth and Branderburgh. Seatown has a population of around 2320 people and is characterized by its semi-detached housing stock. Seatown sits at a low elevation of approximately 5 metres above sea level, looking out onto the Moray Firth. Seatown is located near Stotfield and is within commuting distance of the city of Inverness.
AdBlue drains across Moray, Seatown included
Being a residential suburb, Seatown shares its vans surrounding areas — Branderburgh, Stotfield — all the way across IV postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Give a postcode beginning IV31 6, and our van arrives quickest.
There's no need to move your car. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Station Park, a side street close to Mercat Cross: we drain the car where it stands. Guessing won't help at the back of Wellington NC594 Crash of 20th May 1945 Memorial, close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to pin down; phone and check.
In short, for Seatown drivers
Tip no AdBlue till you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere in Moray, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — so leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103.