Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Arnold: Why It Occurs
Leave your engine and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain plus a full flush, done right where your car sits in Arnold, is normally what it takes if caught before the engine runs. Reading before the event? Then what follows explains why it happens and what to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Many modern diesels on the roads about Arnold and Red Hill carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank has one filler of its own. Many of motors share a single flap for both, whereas others move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Filling the diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. The AdBlue side is filled far less often, normally from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in the gap that the slip lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place in Arnold?
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things coming up together.
On a drive off Derby Street before work, or in the car park at The Friar Tuck Inn on the way home: that's where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low your car warns you, and once it's empty, limp mode follows.
Next, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old car — because a hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the pour after it has started. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Arnold or out in Redhill.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Bestwood or a forecourt around Arnold, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Check the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue ones are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Check for it.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Bulwell.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
Wherever around Nottinghamshire the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Stop somewhere level, motor off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of Worrall Avenue.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both share a flap, make sure it's shut before the bottle comes up.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Never go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Arnold already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the motor. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch it on. Filling up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of that tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help roll the car clear of the petrol pump if you are at a forecourt — the Asda, the Sainsbury's or somewhere else. At home in Arnold? So your car remains put.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your motor has already run. The next exit is the place to leave when you are on the M1, under 5 miles from Arnold. A short hop across Arnold is a smaller job than a run towards Nottingham, under 5 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival around Arnold, and what happens next
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Arnold View Primary School, near Dice & Balls or on your own driveway. Both the work and the price rest on three replies — what liquid, what amount, and whether it has run — so our engineers ask. On the call itself, you are told our quote — before dispatch.
Next: a drain, then a thorough flush of the entire system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes away by itself. Hence it matters more. Once your filter is cleaned — or renewed, where required — fresh diesel is added, and then the vehicle is tested. Before leaving, our engineers fire it up and make sure that it is running properly.
If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. It's worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Arnold and where it is
Arnold is a town in Nottinghamshire, situated approximately 3.4 miles north-east of Nottingham city centre, at an elevation of around 67 metres. Arnold sits in a gently sloping area of the East Midlands, with nearby suburbs including Redhill, Daybrook, and Woodthorpe. Arnold has a population of around 32,648 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Arnold is located about 111.6 miles north of London, making it a commuter town with easy access to the capital.
AdBlue drains round Arnold, and Nottinghamshire beyond
Arnold is a town, and our vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Daybrook and Woodthorpe among them, across the NG postcode area. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting NG5 7.
Your car stays put. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Arnold Methodist Church, a lay-by on the way to Washington Court, a driveway. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Arnold Market, ring and ask rather than guessing.
The short version for Arnold drivers
Always, the cap; after that, the tip. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it stands, anywhere across Nottinghamshire: switch the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103.