Crookes: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Leave the motor and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Around Crookes, catching it before the engine turns usually leaves a drain and a full flush on the spot. 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.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Plenty of newer diesels in Birkendale, like those in Crookes, run on two liquids; your motor gets only your diesel. Its own tank holds it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, and there spraying cleans the gas.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Under one flap, side by side: that's the layout on many cars. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side is filled — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen around Crookes?
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the car, and letting it run out means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Newent Lane, perhaps outside The Ball on the way home that evening.
Next, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old motor — since a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
Nothing halts the tip once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Crookes or out in Steel Bank.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Be it a Crookes forecourt or a driveway over in Broomhill, take a couple of seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue ones are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally aren't.
- On many cars, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Open the flap and check for a label — plenty of cars show what goes in which inlet just there.
- The handbook shows where it is if your filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Sheffield, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
The day the light goes on, wherever across South Yorkshire, follow this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Stannington View Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Finish when that tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour slowly through the own spout.
- Before starting the vehicle, shut the cap and check a second time that the diesel cap was never came off.
Find at stage two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? Then stop just there. Never carry on to step five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Crookes already?
Brief order, then. Top of that: the motor stays unstarted. Leave your ignition off too, since on many diesels switching it on by itself runs your fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
On a forecourt — JET, Shell or any other — the attendants will usually help roll the car clear, if you ask. Your own driveway around Crookes is where it stays.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Come off the M1 — under 5 miles out of Crookes — at the next exit. About how far did it go? Hopping across Crookes is smaller work than a trip of under 3 miles to Sheffield, so tell us.
What takes place when our technicians get there in Crookes
Wherever the vehicle has stopped, whether outside Westways Primary School, beside St Vincent's Catholic Church or at home, our van travels to it. Our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and if it has run, because the answers settle this work and our price. That price is given on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
The system is then flushed thoroughly, after that tank is cleared. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. After the filter has been flushed — or renewed, where required — clean diesel goes in, and then the vehicle gets tested. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
If the motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Before we get there, have a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Crookes
Crookes is a suburban area situated approximately 1.6 miles west of Sheffield city centre, at an elevation of around 222 metres. Crookes forms part of the larger Sheffield urban area, with nearby places including Steel Bank, Howard Hill, and Crookesmoor. Crookes is characterised by its predominantly terraced housing stock, reflecting the area's historical development as a residential suburb. Crookes remains a popular and densely populated area, with a population of around 12,066 residents.
AdBlue drains around Crookes and across South Yorkshire
Throughout S postcodes, our teams covering Crookes — a residential suburb — work the nearby locations too, Crookesmoor and Howard Hill among them. A postcode starting S10 1 gets the van to you fastest.
The car remains put. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Wesley Hall, a lay-by on the way to Tofts Wood, a drive. Awkward to pin down, like the back of STC Sheffield? Close to a county line? Asking is better than assuming, and so phone.
For Crookes motorists, the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it stands, anywhere in South Yorkshire.