Brookside: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Leave the motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Caught before your motor runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Brookside. Reading before the event? In that case what follows explains why it happens and how to stop it ever happening.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads round Brookside and Loundsley Green carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to clean it, from a separate tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that's the layout on many motors. On others, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. Much less frequently, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
Brookside: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Haste comes from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off Somersall Willows, or on the way home in the car park outside Maggie May's.
Next, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old car — because a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not.
A spouted bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, after started, keeps on. Walton or the middle of Brookside: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you tip anything, on a drive in Nether Chanderhill or a forecourt in Brookside.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Check inside your fuel flap: many cars have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Chesterfield.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Derbyshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Somersall Lane, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Stop when that tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; until then, pour gently using the own spout.
- Before you start the car, close the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap was never came off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to step five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Brookside?
Do not start your engine: that's how the short order of things begins. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the vehicle on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it's the Esso or the Morrisons, ask the attendants to help roll the car clear of the pump. Your own driveway in Brookside is where it stays.
Already started? Stop once it is sensible, then turn off. The next exit means where to leave if you are on the M1, under 10 miles from Brookside. Distance counts — a short hop across Brookside makes a smaller job than heading under 15 miles towards Sheffield — so say roughly how far it went.
Brookside: what happens when our engineers turn up
Wherever the car came to rest, whether outside Westfield Infant School, beside Storrs Road Methodist Church or on your own drive, our van travels to it. Those replies determine the work and the quote, so we ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it's run. You get that price by phone, before anyone sets off.
Then that tank is emptied and your system flushed thoroughly. Much more than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: crystals form, certain metals corrode, and none of that washes away unaided, no matter how long it sits. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Then our engineers fire it up and confirm it runs smoothly before we leave.
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 take about half an hour after we are there. Your insurer will ask for the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Brookside itself
Brookside is a suburban area in Derbyshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 118 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Brookside lies approximately 10.6 miles from Sheffield and is close to nearby places such as Walton, Ashgate, and Brampton. Brookside has a population of around 2719 residents and is located in the East Midlands region, about 131.8 miles from London.
AdBlue drains about Brookside, and Derbyshire beyond
Over S postcodes, our vans that cover Brookside — a residential suburb — work the surrounding locations too, Brampton and Ashgate included. A postcode starting S40 3 gets our van to you fastest.
The car remains put. Wherever it sits — near Brookfield Community School Sports Centre, on a layby en route to Somersall Wood, on a drive — that is where it is cleared. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Holymoorside & Walton North East Boundary Stone.
Brookside motorists: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere around Derbyshire.