How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Silloth
Keep your motor and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Caught before your engine runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Silloth. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Not one liquid but two: that is how plenty of modern diesels near Silloth and Blitterlees run, with diesel feeding the motor. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to clean it, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Topping up your diesel side at the pump happens constantly. Much less frequently, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs around Silloth
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Criffel Street before work, or in the car park outside Balmoral Hotel on the way home.
Then the car is new. 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.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the pour once it has started. Whether it occurs in West Silloth or the middle of Silloth, it's the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt in Silloth or a driveway over in East Causewayhead. Seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually is not. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- Plenty of cars fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Look for it.
- Cannot see it next to your diesel inlet? Then check below the bonnet or in your boot — the owner's manual will say where.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Aspatria, ask before you leave, 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 around Cumbria that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Eden Street, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park then switch off properly.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — once you have found your filler and read it.
- The two under a single flap? So confirm the lid on the diesel side is still shut before raising the bottle.
- Stop when that tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip slowly through its own spout.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Stage five stays out.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Silloth?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the vehicle on. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of that tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Texaco, another forecourt nearby or another forecourt will normally lend a hand pushing your car away when asked. Your own driveway around Silloth is the place it stays.
Already run? Stop when it's safe, then switch off. The next junction means the place to come off when you are on the A74(M), under 15 miles from Silloth. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Silloth is smaller a job than a trip of under 25 miles towards Carlisle, and so tell us.
Our arrival around Silloth, and what happens next
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Silloth Primary School, near Tinity Methodist Church or on your own drive. Our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and if it has run, since the replies determine this work and the price. You get that quote by phone, before anyone sets off.
Draining the tank comes next, then a thorough flush of your system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. Testing comes last: before that, clean diesel is added, and the fuel filter is flushed or changed if necessary. Before we go, our engineers fire it up and confirm that it's running correctly.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after our engineers get there, as long as your engine hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Silloth and where it is
Silloth is a small coastal town in Cumbria, situated on the Solway Firth at a low elevation of around 13 metres. Silloth has a mix of housing types, but predominantly features terraced homes, and is located near other small communities such as West Silloth and Greenrow. Silloth is close to the city of Carlisle, which is about 18 miles inland, and is part of a wider rural landscape. Silloth remains a quiet residential centre with a population of around 2202 people.
AdBlue drains around Silloth and across Cumbria
Greenrow and West Causewayhead are among the towns near Silloth, a coastal town, that the same vans cover, throughout CA postcodes. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting CA7 4.
The vehicle stays put. Draining takes place right there, whether a drive, a street near Church of Our Lady of the Assumption, or a lay-by towards Silloth Community Garden. Guessing doesn't help at the back of Christ Church, on a boundary, or anywhere awkward to pin down; phone and check.
Silloth people: the short version
Read the cap before you tip. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Leave it switched off and phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, throughout Cumbria.