How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bolehill
Pause here for a moment if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, done right where your vehicle sits in Bolehill, is usually what it takes when found before your engine runs. The rest of this page explains why it occurs and how to ensure it does not — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads about Bolehill and Little Norton carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
Every tank has one filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that's the arrangement on a lot of cars. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Filling the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. That gap is where the slip lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens in Bolehill
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
On a driveway off Derbyshire Lane before work, or in the car park outside The Mount Pleasant on the way home: that is where the hurried top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and once it's empty, limp mode follows.
New-to-you vehicles are next, as well. Hire cars, new vehicles and company vehicles put their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, once begun, keeps on. Whether it occurs in Norton Woodseats or the middle of Bolehill, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Norton or a forecourt around Bolehill, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Read the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- On plenty of cars, the size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by the diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Dore & Totley? Ask the person who drove the car last before you set off, not when the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around South Yorkshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Hemsworth Road, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park then switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- Both behind one flap? So confirm the cap on your diesel side stays shut before lifting the bottle.
- Stop once your tank fills or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip gently through the built-in spout.
- Before you start the vehicle, close the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap was never opened off.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop just there. Step five stays off limits.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Bolehill?
The short order of things, starting with not starting your engine. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help roll your car away from the petrol pump if you're at a forecourt — the Morrisons, the BP or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway in Bolehill.
When the motor has been run already, stop somewhere safe then turn the vehicle off. The next junction is where to come off when you are on the M1, under 10 miles from Bolehill. Distance matters — a short hop across Bolehill makes a smaller job than heading under 3 miles towards Sheffield — so tell us roughly how far it went.
Bolehill: what takes place when we turn up
Our van reaches your car anywhere it stopped — your own drive, beside Graves Park Dog, or outside Mundella Primary School. Those replies decide the work and the price, and so our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and whether it has run. No one heads out until you've had our price by phone.
Then the tank is emptied and your system flushed thoroughly. More than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: the crystals form, some metals are attacked, and nothing clears out unaided, however long it sits. Filter cleaned or, if needed, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a check of your vehicle. Before we leave, our engineers fire it up and make sure that it's running correctly.
If the motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It is worth checking your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Bolehill itself
Bolehill is a suburban area situated near the city of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, with Bolehill being located close to the riverside and having an elevation of 206 metres. Bolehill sits near several neighbouring communities, including Norton Woodseats, Backmoor, and Fourlane Ends. Bolehill is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock and is approximately 2.9 miles from Sheffield's city centre.
AdBlue drains around Bolehill, and South Yorkshire beyond
Being a residential suburb, Bolehill has the same vans as nearby areas — Backmoor, Fourlane Ends — right across S postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Quickest of all: give a S8 8 postcode to the van.
No need to shift the car. Wherever it stands — near Mount View Methodist Church, in a layby heading to Summerhouse Wood, on a drive — that is where it gets emptied. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of 146th Sheffield Old Norton, ring and ask rather than assuming.
In short, for Bolehill motorists
Read the cap before you pour. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it wherever it stands, anywhere around South Yorkshire: keep the car off and call 0333 366 0103.