Birley Edge: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Keep your engine and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Normally, when your engine has not run, it is drained and fully flushed where the car sits in Birley Edge. Not happened yet? Below, the rest of the page explains the reasons it occurs and the ways to avoid it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many newer diesels on the roads round Birley Edge and Parson Cross carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. The exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to clean them, from its own tank.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on many vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. The error lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place around Birley Edge?
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the car, and letting it run dry means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Edge Close, or outside Fox & Hounds on the way home that evening.
Next, your hand goes for the cap it knew on the old vehicle — because a rental car, a new car or a company car places the fillers where your last one did not.
Nothing stops the tip once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it occurs in Birley Carr or the middle of Birley Edge, it's the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt in Birley Edge or a drive out in The Wheel. Seconds, that's all.
- Read the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally are not.
- On plenty of cars, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — plenty of motors show which belongs in which filler just there.
- The handbook says which it lives when the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Chapeltown, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
When the light goes on, anywhere in South Yorkshire, follow this routine.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of Edge Well Way.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, but it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and look once more — confirm the diesel cap stayed closed throughout. After that, start your car.
Discover during the second or third step that the bottle went in the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Don't go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Birley Edge already?
Do not start the motor: that's how the short order of things starts. The fuel pump starts on many diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — so leave it off. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
Ask the staff to help roll the car clear of the petrol pump if you're at a forecourt — the Esso, the BP or somewhere else. Your own driveway in Birley Edge is the place it stays.
Already started? Pull over when it's safe, then turn off. Leave the M1 — under 3 miles out of Birley Edge — at the first junction. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Sheffield, under 5 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Birley Edge.
What happens when our engineers arrive in Birley Edge
Our van comes to the car wherever it stopped — your own driveway, beside Fox Hill Community Centre, or outside Fox Hill Primary. The replies determine the work and our quote, so our engineers ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. The price comes over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Draining your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of your system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that matters more here than with petrol. A test is last: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and the filter is flushed or changed as needed. Before leaving, we start it and check that it's running correctly.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your engine hasn't run need about half an hour once we are there. Nothing in advance; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Birley Edge itself
Birley Edge is a suburban area situated approximately 3.6 miles from Sheffield, lying at an elevation of 185 metres in the inland setting of South Yorkshire. Birley Edge is characterised by its semi-detached housing stock, which dominates the local landscape. Birley Edge is close to nearby places such as Birley Carr, Wadsley Bridge, and Grenoside, and is home to a population of around 3296 residents.
AdBlue drains across South Yorkshire, Birley Edge included
Birley Edge is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the places around it, Wadsley Bridge and Grenoside among them, across the S postcode area. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting S6 1.
Moving your car isn't needed. Draining happens on the spot, be it a drive, a street near Fox Hill Whale, or a layby on the way to Back Edge. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Foxhill Forum.
In short, for Birley Edge motorists
Read the cap before you pour. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it is, wherever around South Yorkshire: keep the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103.