Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in St Anns Hill: Why It Occurs
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and your ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. In St Anns Hill, finding it before your motor runs normally leaves draining and a thorough flush on the spot. Reading before the event? Then the rest covers how it happens and how to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel goes to the motor — but plenty of current diesels driven round St Anns Hill and Mount Pleasant hold another fluid too. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, and there a spray treats the fumes.
There's a filler for each tank. Under one flap, side by side: that's the layout on many motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. That gap is where the error lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in St Anns Hill: how it occurs
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
Haste comes from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a driveway off Portrack Lane, or on the way home in the car park outside The Portrack.
Then, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old motor — since a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
A spouted bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once started, carries on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of St Anns Hill or out in Queens Park.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Check these first, at a forecourt around St Anns Hill or a driveway over in Newtown. Seconds, no more.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Plenty of motors give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Look for it.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Stockton? Ask the person who drove the vehicle last before leaving, not once the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
When the light goes on, anywhere in Durham, use this routine.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time in hand — never rushing on the side of Limeoak Way.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud while unscrewing it. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- The two under one flap? So confirm the cap on your diesel filler stays shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Do not go on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in St Anns Hill?
Brief list, then. Top of that: the engine stays off. The fuel pump starts on many diesels the moment your ignition is switched on — so leave it off. Filling up with diesel will not dilute it: instead, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
The attendants at Asda, JET or another forecourt will normally lend a hand to push the vehicle clear if asked. If you're on your own driveway around St Anns Hill, leave the car where it sits.
Already run? Pull over when it is safe, then switch off. St Anns Hill lies under 10 miles from the A1(M); there, take the first junction. Mileage counts — a short hop across St Anns Hill is a smaller job than driving under 25 miles towards Durham — so say about how far it went.
What happens when our technicians get there around St Anns Hill
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Tilery Primary School, close to Portrack Baptist Church or on your own driveway. What fluid was put in, the quantity, and whether it ran: we ask since those replies set both work and quote. No one sets off before you have heard our price by phone.
Emptying that tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the fuel system. Much more than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: the crystals form, certain metals are attacked, and none of it clears away unaided, no matter how long it is left. Once the fuel filter has been cleaned — or renewed, if required — clean diesel is added, and finally the car is tested. We don't go until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor has not run need about half an hour after our engineers arrive. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It's worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About St Anns Hill and where it is
St Anns Hill is a suburban area located on the riverside in County Durham, with an elevation of 14 metres above sea level. St Anns Hill sits near the city of Durham, approximately 18 miles away, and is close to nearby places such as Queens Park and Stockton-on-Tees. St Anns Hill is characterised by its predominantly terraced housing stock, which reflects the area's history of residential development.
AdBlue drains round St Anns Hill, and Durham beyond
As a residential suburb, St Anns Hill shares its vans surrounding places — Stockton-on-Tees, Primrose Hill — all the way across TS postcodes and the wider area beyond. Quickest of all: give a TS18 2 postcode to the van.
Shifting the vehicle is not necessary. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street close to Saint Mary's, a lay-by on the way to Stockton Sports Centre, a driveway. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of River Tees Watersports Centre.
In short, for St Anns Hill motorists
Always, the cap; after that, the tip. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it sits, anywhere across Durham.