Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Alwoodley Park
Pause here a minute if the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Normally, if the engine has not turned, it's drained and thoroughly rinsed where your car is around Alwoodley Park. Reading before the event? Then the rest explains why it happens and what to stop it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Not one fluid but two: that's how many modern diesels around Alwoodley Park and Eccup carry, with diesel for the motor. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, where spraying cleans the fumes.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on a lot of vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump happens constantly. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less often, normally from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. The error lives in that gap.
Alwoodley Park: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car 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 driveway off The Quarry before work, or in the car park outside Moortown Social Club on the way home.
Then, your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old motor — because a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
Lastly, the bottle fits: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as readily, and after the pour starts, no part halts it. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Alwoodley Park or out in Black Moor.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Adel East Moor or a forecourt around Alwoodley Park, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- Open the flap and look for a label — plenty of vehicles mark what belongs in each inlet just there.
- The handbook says which it is if the filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Horsforth, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in West Yorkshire that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Alwoodley Lane.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop right there. Stage five is out.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Alwoodley Park?
Brief order, then. First: the motor remains off. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment your ignition goes on — so keep it off. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
The staff at Asda, BP or another forecourt will normally help to push your car clear when you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around Alwoodley Park.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Alwoodley Park sits under 5 miles from the A58(M); on it, use the first junction. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Alwoodley Park is less a job than a run of under 5 miles to Leeds, so say.
When our engineers get there around Alwoodley Park, what occurs?
Our engineers come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside St Paul's Catholic Primary School, a Voluntary Academy, close to St Barnabas or on your own drive. The answers decide the work and our quote, so our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. You get that quote by phone, before anybody sets off.
Then that tank is drained and the fuel system purged thoroughly. More than with petrol, it matters here: crystals build up, certain metals corrode, and none of it washes out on its own, no matter how long it is left. Once the filter is cleaned — or renewed, if needed — clean diesel is added, and finally the vehicle is tested. Next our engineers start the car and confirm it runs correctly before we go.
Using pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor has not run need roughly half an hour once our technicians arrive. 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 many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Alwoodley Park, briefly
Alwoodley Park is a suburban area located in West Yorkshire, situated approximately 4.3 miles north of Leeds city centre. Alwoodley Park sits at an elevation of 158 metres, amidst the gently rolling hills of the Yorkshire landscape. Alwoodley Park is characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, with nearby amenities and open spaces such as Black Moor and Alwoodley.
AdBlue drains about Alwoodley Park, and West Yorkshire beyond
Alwoodley Park is a residential suburb, and the teams that cover it also work the towns around it, Camp Town and Alwoodley among them, across the LS postcode area. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting LS17 7.
The vehicle does not need to move. Wherever it sits — near Alwoodley Park Methodist Church, in a lay-by en route to Johnson's Shaft, on a drive — that's where it gets drained. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Alwoodley Community Association, ring and ask instead of assuming.
Alwoodley Park people: the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere across West Yorkshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — so leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.