Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Wallsend
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case put this page aside for now, keep the ignition and engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Wallsend. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Many newer diesels on the roads about Wallsend and Low Walker carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, and there spraying cleans the fumes.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Other vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty more have both side by side under one flap. Filling the diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. Far less frequently, the AdBlue side gets topped up — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Wallsend: how it happens
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a driveway off Station Road before work, or in the car park at The Anson heading home: that's where the rushed top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car tells you, and once it is empty, limp mode follows.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — but a hire car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That's the second factor: an unfamiliar car.
Nothing halts the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's a few seconds, be it in Walkerville or right in the centre of Wallsend.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A few seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you pour anything, on a drive in Point Pleasant or a forecourt around Wallsend.
- Check the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally aren't.
- On many cars, size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check when you collect a hire car or company car — at Heworth's car park, perhaps — not once the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Tyne and Wear that is.
- Switch off once parked — level ground, motor off, and never rushed by High Street West on the verge.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud while unscrewing it. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- Both under a single flap? So confirm the lid on your diesel filler is still shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Shut the cap, then check again — confirm the diesel filler stayed closed the whole time. Only then, start the vehicle.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Do not go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Wallsend already?
Don't start your motor: that is where the short order of things begins. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel won't dilute it: instead, AdBlue drops to the base of that tank, just where fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — Carville Service Station, Esso or any other — the staff will normally help push your car clear, if you ask. If you are on your own driveway in Wallsend, leave the vehicle where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. Come off the A167(M) — under 3 miles out of Wallsend — at the first exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Newcastle upon Tyne, under 5 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Wallsend.
Our arrival in Wallsend, and what happens next
Wherever the car has stopped, whether outside Carville Academy, near Wallsend Memorial Hall or on your own drive, the van comes to it. The answers settle the work and the quote, and so our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. The price is given on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Draining the tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the fuel system. Much more than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: crystals form, some metals are attacked, and nothing washes out on its own, however long it is left. Testing is last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is cleaned or replaced as needed. Next our engineers start the car and check it runs correctly before we leave.
Unrun cars mostly need a half-hour visit after arrival. The equipment is safe on a busy filling station, and quiet enough for a driveway after dark. Your insurer will ask for an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours once the job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Wallsend
Wallsend is a town situated on the river in northeast England, within the county of Tyne and Wear. It is located near the end of a famous ancient Roman wall. The town is close to Newcastle upon Tyne, making it part of a larger urban area. Wallsend's riverside setting adds to its character as a distinct town.
AdBlue drains around Wallsend and across Tyne and Wear
Bigges Main and Holy Cross are among the places around Wallsend, a riverside town, that the same vans cover, throughout NE postcodes. Quote a postcode beginning NE28 8, and our van gets there quickest.
Shifting the vehicle is not necessary. Anywhere it sits — near Saint Luke the Evangelist, on a layby heading to The Green, at home — that is where it is emptied. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of North Tyneside Art Studio, ring and ask instead of assuming.
Wallsend people: the short version
Tip nothing till you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere around Tyne and Wear, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — and so leave the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.