Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Black Friars: Why It Happens
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then set this page down a moment, leave your ignition and engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Around Black Friars, finding it before your engine turns usually leaves draining and a full flush where it stands. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Plenty of newer diesels in Westcotes, as well as Black Friars, run on two liquids; the engine gets just the diesel. Its own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, and there a spray treats the gas.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of cars have a single flap for both, whereas others move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is topped up at the pump all the time. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less commonly. The slip lives in that gap.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Black Friars: how it happens
Carelessness rarely causes it. What does is three things coming up at once.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off All Saints Road before work, or in the car park at The New Joiners on the way home.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in just as readily, and after the tip starts, nothing halts it. Frog Island or the middle of Black Friars: it takes the same few seconds either way.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt in Black Friars or a drive out in Southfields. Seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Plenty of motors give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Check for it.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler is if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Leicester, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
Wherever in Leicestershire the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, engine stopped, and not rushed beside Kilby Lane at the roadside.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, yes, but it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave it on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Discover at the second or third stage that the bottle went into the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Skip step five entirely.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Black Friars?
Do not start your motor: that is where the short order of things starts. Keep the ignition off too, since on many diesels it alone starts the pump. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is pulled from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the Esso or the BP, ask the attendants to help roll the vehicle clear of the pump. Your own drive around Black Friars is where it stays.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Come off the M1 — under 3 miles out of Black Friars — at the first junction. About how far did it go? Hopping across Black Friars is less work than a trip of under a mile to Leicester, so say.
Black Friars: what takes place when our technicians turn up
By Slater Primary School, near All Saint's or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our engineers come to it. Our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, because the answers decide this work and our quote. You hear that price on the phone, before anybody sets off.
Emptying your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of your system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of it clears out unaided. Hence it matters more. Filter flushed or, if needed, replaced; clean diesel in; then a test of your car. Before leaving, our technicians fire it up and confirm that it's running properly.
With pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor has not run need roughly half an hour after we are there. Nothing upfront; you settle up on the day. At the end, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Black Friars itself
Black Friars is a suburban area located on the riverside in Leicestershire, with a mix of terraced housing and local amenities. Black Friars sits near the city centre of Leicester, approximately 0.5 miles away, and is close to nearby places such as Frog Island and New Found Pool. Black Friars has a population of around 10551 people and is situated at an elevation of 61 metres, making it a relatively low-lying area. Black Friars is also within easy reach of the wider East Midlands region and is about 89.2 miles from London.
Black Friars and Leicestershire: AdBlue drains across the area
Being a residential suburb, Black Friars has the same vans as surrounding places — New Found Pool, Leicester — all the way across LE postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting LE3 5.
There's no need to move your car. Anywhere it sits — beside Hamidiye Camii, on a layby heading to The Rally Community Park, at home — that is where it gets drained. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Guru Nanak Gurdwara, ring and ask instead of assuming.
The short version for Black Friars drivers
Pour no AdBlue till you have read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it wherever it is, wherever around Leicestershire: switch the car off then call 0333 366 0103.