Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in The Murray
Keep the motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Caught before your engine runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around The Murray. Here in advance? In that case what follows explains how it comes about and what to stop it ever happening.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Plenty of modern diesels in East Kilbride, as well as The Murray, carry on two liquids; the engine gets only your diesel. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
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. Diesel goes in on every filling station visit, week in, week out. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less regularly. The error lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs in The Murray
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Heathery Knowe before work, or in the car park at Tower Bar on the way home.
Then your car is new. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, once begun, keeps on. Whitehills or the heart of The Murray: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Birniehill or a forecourt in The Murray, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Check the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- Many cars fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on many vehicles. Check for it.
- The handbook shows where it lives if your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside East Kilbride, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
When the light comes on, wherever in South Lanarkshire, follow this routine.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Auld Terrace.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you have located the filler and read it.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the car, shut the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap never opened off.
Find during the second or third step that the bottle went into the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Never go on to stage five.
The Murray: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Don't start the engine: that's where the short order of things starts. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the car on. Filling up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of your tank, right where fuel is taken from.
The staff at Morrisons, BP or another forecourt will normally help pushing the car clear when you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in The Murray.
Where your motor has been run already, stop safely and turn it off. On the M74, under 10 miles from The Murray, that means the next exit. About how far did it go? Hopping across The Murray is smaller work than a trip of under 10 miles to Glasgow, and so say.
The Murray: what happens when we arrive
By the local primary school, close to Glasgow Garden Festival Art Installation or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and whether it has run, because the answers decide the work and our price. During the call itself, you hear the price — ahead of anything else.
Then that tank is emptied and the system rinsed thoroughly. With AdBlue that counts 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. Filter cleaned or, if needed, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a check of your vehicle. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
Unrun cars mostly mean a half-hour visit after arrival. The equipment is safe on a live forecourt, and quiet enough for a residential street late at night. 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 check yours.
About The Murray
The Murray is a suburban area situated on the riverside in South Lanarkshire, with a mix of terraced housing and local amenities. The Murray sits near the city of Glasgow, approximately 8 miles from the city centre, and is close to nearby places such as Whitehills and Greenhills. The Murray has a population of around 6334 people and is located at an elevation of 191 metres. The Murray is part of the wider Glasgow urban area, with easy access to the city's facilities and services.
AdBlue drains about The Murray, and South Lanarkshire beyond
West Mains and Greenhills are among the places around The Murray, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, throughout G postcodes. Quote a postcode beginning G75 0, and the van arrives quickest.
Your car remains where it is. Draining happens on the spot, be it a drive, a street by The Murray Square shops, or a lay-by on the way to Livingstone Drive. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of The Murray Owen Centre.
The Murray drivers: the short version
Tip nothing until you've read the cap. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it wherever it stands, wherever in South Lanarkshire: keep the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.