Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Ampleforth
Leave your engine and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Normally, if the engine hasn't run, it's emptied and fully cleaned where the car sits around Ampleforth. Reading in advance? Then what follows explains why it comes about and how to stop it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
No single liquid but two: that is how many modern diesels around Ampleforth and Oswaldkirk run, with diesel for the engine. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler for every tank. Other motors put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others have both together under one flap. At the petrol pump, the diesel side gets filled constantly. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less regularly. The mistake grows in the gap between them.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Ampleforth: how it occurs
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Station Road before work, or in the car park outside White Swan on the way home.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — but a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That's a second thing: an unfamiliar vehicle.
Lastly, the bottle goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in just as readily, and after the tip begins, nothing halts it. It takes a few seconds, be it in Wass or right in the centre of Ampleforth.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A few seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a drive in Sproxton or a forecourt around Ampleforth.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Plenty of vehicles give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on many vehicles. Check for it.
- The handbook says where it lives if the filler is not next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check when you collect a hire car or fleet car — at Thirsk's car park, say — rather than once the warning appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
The day the light goes on, anywhere in North Yorkshire, follow this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of St Hilda's Walk.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, yes, yet it does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two share a flap, make sure it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Stop once the tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, tip gently through the built-in spout.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Stage five is out.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Ampleforth?
The short order of things, beginning with no starting the engine. Don't switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel won't weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of the tank, right where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — BATA Ltd, another forecourt nearby or another — the staff will normally help roll the car clear, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around Ampleforth.
Where your engine has run already, stop somewhere safe then turn the vehicle off. On the A1(M), under 15 miles from Ampleforth, that means the next exit. Mileage matters — a short hop across Ampleforth makes a smaller job than driving under 25 miles to York — so tell us roughly how far it went.
Ampleforth: what occurs when our engineers get there
By St Benedict's Catholic Primary School - a Catholic voluntary academy, near Ampleforth Village Hall or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it has run, since those answers decide this work and our quote. You hear that price on the phone, before anybody sets off.
Next: draining, then a full flush of the whole system. With AdBlue that counts 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. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
If your motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. It is worth checking your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Ampleforth itself
Ampleforth is a small village in North Yorkshire, situated approximately 16.5 miles north of York, and is characterised by its semi-detached housing. Ampleforth sits in a rural area at an elevation of around 112 metres, near to the historic Byland Abbey and the village of Wass. Ampleforth is also close to Gilling East, and its location reflects the typical Yorkshire landscape of rolling hills and countryside. Ampleforth remains a quiet residential community with a population of around 561 people.
AdBlue drains around Ampleforth and across North Yorkshire
As a rural village, Ampleforth has the same vans as surrounding places — Byland Abbey, Gilling East — right through YO postcodes and the wider area beyond. Quickest of all: quote a YO62 4 postcode to our van.
Shifting the vehicle isn't necessary. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near St Hilda, a lay-by on the way to Memorial Garden, a drive. Guessing doesn't help behind Our Lady & St Benedicts, on a boundary, or anywhere awkward to describe; ring and ask.
For Ampleforth drivers, the short version
Pour nothing until you have read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it wherever it is, anywhere around North Yorkshire: keep the car off then ring 0333 366 0103.