Eastwood: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and your ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. In Eastwood, finding it before your motor turns usually leaves draining and a thorough flush on the spot. Here in advance? Then the rest covers why it comes about and how to stop it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of newer diesels in St Anns, as well as Eastwood, run on two fluids; the motor takes only your diesel. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at each forecourt visit, week in, week out. Seldom filled, AdBlue usually goes in out of a bottle, tipped by someone who has to stop and think what cap it needs. It's in that gap that the error lives.
Eastwood: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
It's rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Doncaster Place before work, or in the car park outside The Park on the way home.
Then, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old motor — since a rental car, a new car or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after begun, keeps on. Clifton or the heart of Eastwood: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Rotherham or a forecourt around Eastwood, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Plenty of cars fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of vehicles show what belongs in each filler just there.
- The handbook shows which it is if your filler is not next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Rotherham Central.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across South Yorkshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Rotherhill Close, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off properly.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It sounds silly. It works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Leave out step five entirely.
Eastwood: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The short order of things, beginning with not starting your engine. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help roll the car clear of the pump if you're on a forecourt — the Shell, the another forecourt nearby or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around Eastwood.
Where your motor has been run already, pull over safely and turn the car off. Leave the M1 — under 3 miles out of Eastwood — at the next exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Sheffield, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Eastwood.
Eastwood: what occurs when our technicians arrive
Outside East Dene Primary, close to St James Church, East Dene or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our technicians come to it. Our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it's run, because the answers decide the work and our quote. On the phone call itself, you hear the price — ahead of anything else.
Then that tank is emptied and your system purged thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. We don't go until it has been started and is running smoothly.
Unrun vehicles usually mean a half-hour job after arrival. The equipment is fine on a live forecourt, and quiet enough for a driveway after dark. Your insurer will ask for an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours once the job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — and so use the wait to check yours.
About Eastwood
Eastwood is a suburban area in South Yorkshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 64 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Eastwood lies approximately 6.6 miles from Sheffield and is close to nearby places such as Clifton, East Dene, and East Herringthorpe. Eastwood is home to around 8996 residents and forms part of the wider Sheffield urban area. Eastwood's location near the city makes it a popular choice for those who want to balance urban and suburban living.
AdBlue drains around Eastwood and across South Yorkshire
Being a residential suburb, Eastwood shares its vans surrounding areas — East Dene, East Herringthorpe — right through S postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Give a postcode that starts S65 2, and the van gets there quickest.
Moving the car isn't necessary. Draining happens on the spot, whether a driveway, a road near Simply Skate Arena, or a layby on the way to Clifton Park. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Masjid Al-Salam, ring and ask rather than guessing.
The short version for Eastwood people
First, the cap; after that, the pour. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere across South Yorkshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — so leave it off and ring 0333 366 0103.