Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Brooklands
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and your ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Normally, if the engine hasn't run, it's emptied and thoroughly cleaned where the vehicle is in Brooklands. Nothing happened yet? Below, the page explains the reasons it happens and the how to prevent it for good.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Diesel feeds the motor — yet many current diesels driven round Brooklands and Brianside hold another liquid too. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the gas to fresh it, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Some motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty more have both side by side behind one flap. Diesel gets filled at every forecourt call-out, again and again. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and usually by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens in Brooklands
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
On a driveway off Easdale Road before work, or in the car park outside Seacroft Working Mens Club on the way home: that is where the hurried top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle warns you, and once it's empty, limp mode follows.
Unfamiliar cars come next, too. Hire cars, new motors and company motors place their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It takes seconds, be it out in The Green or right in the heart of Brooklands.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you tip anything, on a drive in Fearnville or a forecourt around Brooklands.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- On many motors, the size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask as you pick up a rental or fleet car — from Cross Gates's car park, perhaps — not when the warning comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
Wherever around West Yorkshire the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Brooklands Avenue, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park then switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, yet it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your 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.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Do not go on to stage five.
Brooklands: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Short order, then. First: your motor remains unstarted. Do not switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Tesco, Shell or another — the staff will usually help roll the vehicle away, when you ask. At home around Brooklands? So your car stays put.
Where your engine has been run by now, stop somewhere safe and switch it off. On the M1, under 3 miles from Brooklands, that means the next junction. A short hop across Brooklands is a smaller job than a run towards Leeds, under 5 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Brooklands: what occurs when our engineers get there
We come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Beechwood Primary School, close to Seacroft Congregational Church or on your own drive. Our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it has run, because those replies determine the work and the price. During the phone call itself, you hear our quote — before dispatch.
Your system is then rinsed thoroughly, after your tank is cleared. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Before we go, our engineers fire it up and make sure that it is running properly.
If the motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. It is worth checking your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Brooklands itself
Brooklands is a suburban area situated on the riverside in West Yorkshire, with an elevation of 71 metres and a population of around 7168 people. Brooklands is located approximately 3.5 miles from Leeds and is near other local places such as The Green, Beechwood, and Parklands. Brooklands has a predominance of semi-detached housing and is part of the wider Leeds urban area. Brooklands is also relatively distant from London, at a distance of 169.3 miles.
AdBlue drains in Brooklands and across West Yorkshire
Brooklands is a residential suburb, and our vans that cover it also work the towns near it, Beechwood and Parklands among them, across the LS postcode area. Fastest of all: quote a LS14 6 postcode for the van.
Your car doesn't need to move. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Seacroft Gardens, a side street close to Seacroft Childrens Centre: our engineers drain the vehicle where it sits. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Church of Ascension, ring and ask instead of assuming.
For Brooklands drivers, the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it waits, anywhere around West Yorkshire.