Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Common End: Why It Happens
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and your ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. Normally, when your motor hasn't run, it is drained and fully cleaned where your car sits around Common End. The rest of this page explains why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads around Common End and Cross Hill 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.
There is a filler on every tank. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side gets filled constantly. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think what filler to use. The mistake lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Common End: how it happens
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Kirkby Road before work, or in the car park outside Hemsworth Albion Working Mens Club on the way home.
Unfamiliar motors come next, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company vehicles place their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
Nothing stops the tip after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Highfield or the heart of Common End: it takes the same few seconds either way.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Be it a Common End forecourt or a driveway out in Hemsworth, take a couple of seconds on these before any goes in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Plenty of vehicles give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows which it is if your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check as you pick up a rental or company car — from Fitzwilliam's car park, perhaps — not once the warning comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around West Yorkshire that is.
- Turn off after you park — level ground, engine off, and never rushed by Thomas Street on the verge.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It sounds silly. 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, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Find at the second or third stage that the bottle went into the diesel filler? That is where you stop. Step five is off limits.
Common End: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
The short order of things, beginning with no starting your motor. Keep your ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself runs the pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
The staff at Tesco, another forecourt nearby or any forecourt will normally lend a hand pushing the vehicle clear if asked. Your own driveway around Common End is the place it should stay.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Common End lies under 10 miles from the A1(M); on it, take the first exit. Mileage counts — a quick hop across Common End makes a smaller job than driving under 10 miles to Wakefield — so say roughly how far it went.
Our arrival in Common End, and what happens next
By Grove Lea Primary School, near Salvation Army Church & Community Centre or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, we come to it. Our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it's run, because the answers decide this work and our quote. You hear that quote by phone, before anyone heads out.
Draining the tank comes next, then a full flush of the system. Much more than with petrol, it matters here: the crystals form, some metals corrode, and nothing washes out on its own, no matter how long it is left. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Before leaving, our engineers fire it up and confirm that it's running properly.
Unstarted cars mostly mean a half-hour visit after arrival. The equipment is safe on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. No money upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Common End
Common End is a suburban area located on the riverside in West Yorkshire, with a mix of semi-detached housing and local amenities. Common End sits at an elevation of 58 metres, close to the nearby places of Highfield, Little Hemsworth, and Green Hill. Common End is situated near Wakefield, which is approximately 8 miles away, and is part of the larger urban area surrounding the city. Common End has a population of around 5063 residents, living in a variety of semi-detached homes.
AdBlue drains across West Yorkshire, Common End included
Common End is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Little Hemsworth and Green Hill among them, across the WF postcode area. A postcode starting WF9 4 gets our van to you fastest.
There's no need to move the car. Anywhere it sits — beside Hemsworth Christian Fellowship, on a layby en route to Victoria Park and Play area, on a drive — that's where it gets emptied. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Hemsworth Spiritualist Church, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Common End drivers: the short version
Tip nothing till you've read the cap. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it wherever it is, wherever across West Yorkshire: keep it off then ring 0333 366 0103.