How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bessacarr
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, carried out just where the vehicle sits around Bessacarr, is normally what it needs when found before your motor runs. Here in advance? Then the rest explains how it happens and how to stop it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads around Bessacarr and Branton carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank has one filler of its own. Plenty of vehicles have a single flap for the two, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in on every forecourt call-out, again and again. Much less often, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
Bessacarr: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
Hurry follows from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a drive off Tranmoor Avenue, or heading home in the car park at Hawthorn Social Club.
The old car's filler is where your hand reaches — but a rental car, a new motor or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's a second factor: a new vehicle.
Nothing stops 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 seconds, be it out in Cantley or bang in the heart of Bessacarr.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Lakeside Village or a forecourt in Bessacarr, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally do not.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — plenty of vehicles show which belongs in which inlet right there.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Doncaster, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
For the day the light comes on — anywhere it is across South Yorkshire — a simple routine to follow.
- Turn off after you park — flat ground, motor stopped, and not rushed beside Church Lane at the roadside.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, yet it does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. When the two sit under a flap, make sure it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then look once more — making sure your diesel filler remained closed throughout. Only then, start the vehicle.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Never carry on to stage five.
Bessacarr: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
The short order of things, starting with no starting the motor. The fuel pump starts on many diesels the moment your ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Filling up with diesel won't weaken it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of the tank, right where fuel is taken from.
Ask the staff to help push your car clear of the petrol pump if you're on a forecourt — the Esso, the JET or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Bessacarr.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Bessacarr sits under a mile from the M18; there, use the next junction. A short hop across Bessacarr is a smaller job than a run towards Doncaster, under 3 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our engineers arrive in Bessacarr, what takes place?
Our van comes to the car anywhere it stopped — your own driveway, beside Cantley Library, or outside Hatchell Wood Primary Academy. Our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it's run, since those replies decide the work and our quote. On the call itself, you hear our quote — before anything else.
Then your tank is emptied and the fuel system flushed thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of that washes out unaided. Hence it matters more. Once the fuel filter has been cleaned — or renewed, where required — clean diesel goes in, and then your car gets tested. Next we start it and make sure it runs smoothly before we go.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once we arrive, provided your engine has not run — and the pumps we use are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Bessacarr, briefly
Bessacarr is a suburban area located near Doncaster in South Yorkshire, sitting at an elevation of 23 metres above sea level. Bessacarr is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock and is situated close to nearby places such as Cantley and Old Cantley. Bessacarr is home to a population of approximately 5826 residents and is just 2.8 miles from Doncaster city centre. Bessacarr is also relatively close to Doncaster Common, a nearby area of open space.
AdBlue drains in Bessacarr and across South Yorkshire
Old Cantley and Doncaster Common are among the towns around Bessacarr, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, over DN postcodes. Quickest of all: give a DN4 6 postcode to the van.
Your car doesn't need to shift. The drain takes place right there, whether a drive, a road by St Wilfred's Cantley, or a layby on the way to Church Plantation. Tricky to explain, like the back of St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church? Close to a county line? Checking is better than assuming, and so phone.
Bessacarr drivers: the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Leave it switched off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, throughout South Yorkshire.