AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Tradeston: Why It Occurs and How to Stop It
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then set this page down for now, leave the ignition and engine off, then phone 0333 366 0103. Normally, when your engine hasn't turned, it is emptied and fully flushed where your car is in Tradeston. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Diesel goes to your engine — yet many modern diesels driven round Tradeston and Broomielaw hold another fluid as well. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank comes with a filler of its own. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, the diesel side gets filled all the time. The AdBlue side is filled far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in that gap that the mistake happens.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Tradeston: how it takes place
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things lining up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Laidlaw Street before work, or in the car park at Lord Nelson Bar on the way home.
Next, the hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old car — because a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
No part halts the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's a few seconds, whether in Port Eglinton or right in the heart of Tradeston.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Tradeston forecourt or a drive over in Lancefield, spend a couple of seconds over these before anything is poured in.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue ones are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally aren't.
- Plenty of vehicles give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of cars say there which fuel goes where.
- Can't find it next to your diesel inlet? In that case check below the bonnet or in the boot — the handbook says where.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check as you pick up a hire car or fleet car — at Pollokshields East's car park, perhaps — rather than when the light appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
On the day the light comes on — wherever it is across Glasgow City — a simple routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of Kinning Street, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park and switch off first.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It sounds silly. It works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? Then stop right there. Don't go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Tradeston?
Brief list, then. Top of it: the engine stays off. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — so keep it off. Diluting it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue settles to the base rather than mixing — and that is where your fuel is pulled from.
Ask the attendants to help roll the vehicle away from the petrol pump if you're at a forecourt — the Shell, the BP or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive in Tradeston.
Where your motor has been run already, stop somewhere safe and switch the car off. Tradeston lies under a mile from the M74; on it, take the first junction. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Glasgow, under 3 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Tradeston.
Tradeston: what takes place when our engineers arrive
Our technicians come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside the local primary school, close to Scotland Street School Museum or on your own drive. Both the work and the quote rest on three answers — which liquid, which amount, and if it has run — so our engineers ask. No one heads out until you've heard the price over the phone.
Next: draining, then a full flush of the whole system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Filter flushed or, if it must be, replaced; fresh diesel in; and then a check of your vehicle. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor has not run take roughly half an hour once our engineers are there. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Tradeston itself
Tradeston is a riverside suburban area in Glasgow City, situated near the River Clyde at an elevation of around 12 metres. Tradeston is close to the city centre, approximately 1.6 miles from Glasgow, and is surrounded by other nearby places such as Port Eglinton, Kingston, and Gorbals. Tradeston is predominantly composed of flat-type housing, which accommodates its population of around 3323 residents.
AdBlue drains about Tradeston, and Glasgow City beyond
As a residential suburb, Tradeston has the same vans as surrounding places — Kingston, Gorbals — all the way across G postcodes and the surrounding area around them. A postcode starting G5 8 gets the van to you fastest.
No need to move the vehicle. Anywhere it sits — beside Light and Life, on a lay-by heading to Gorbals New Park, on a drive — that is where it gets drained. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Pollokshields Comunity Centre? By a border? Asking is better than assuming, and so ring.
In short, for Tradeston people
First, the cap; after that, the pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it waits, anywhere around Glasgow City.