Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Greetland
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and your ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. Normally, when your motor hasn't run, it is drained and thoroughly rinsed where the car sits around Greetland. Here before the event? In that case the rest covers how it happens and how to stop it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Plenty of modern diesels in Little Bradley, like those in Greetland, carry on two liquids; the motor gets just your diesel. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to clean it, from a separate tank.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. Many of cars have a single flap for the two, while some put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is topped up at the petrol pump all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less commonly. That gap is where the slip lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Greetland: how it takes place
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
Hurry comes from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off Rochdale Road, or heading home in the car park at Greetland Social Club.
Then your car is new. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Lastly, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in just as readily, and once the pour starts, nothing halts it. Sunnybank or the heart of Greetland: it is the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Upper Greetland or a forecourt in Greetland, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue caps are often blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally do not.
- On plenty of cars, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — many motors show which belongs in each inlet just there.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Sowerby Bridge? Ask whoever drove it last before you set off, rather than once the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
When the light comes on, anywhere in West Yorkshire, use this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of School Street.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, yes, yet it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop just there. Leave out step five entirely.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Greetland?
Don't start the engine: that's how the short order of things begins. Leave your ignition off as well, because on many diesels it alone runs the pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the attendants to help roll the car clear of the pump if you are at a forecourt — the JET, the Shell or somewhere else. If you're on your own drive in Greetland, leave it where it stands.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. On the M62, under 3 miles from Greetland, that means the next junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Bradford, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Greetland.
What happens when our engineers arrive around Greetland
Our van comes to the vehicle wherever it stopped — your own driveway, beside St Thomas' Church Greetland and West Vale, or by The Greetland Academy. Those answers decide this work and the quote, and so we ask what got in, about how much, and whether it's run. You get that quote by phone, before anybody sets off.
Next: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. More than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: crystals form, certain metals are attacked, and nothing washes out on its own, no matter how long it sits. After the filter is flushed — or renewed, where needed — fresh diesel goes in, and then the vehicle gets tested. We don't leave until it has been started and is running smoothly.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor has not run need about half an hour once our engineers arrive. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, have a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Greetland
Greetland is a suburban area in West Yorkshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 156 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type. Greetland lies approximately 8.5 miles from Bradford and 167.5 miles from London, near neighbouring areas such as Sunnybank and Cross Hill. Greetland has a population of around 3496 residents, living in a mix of old and new buildings. Greetland is part of the larger urban area surrounding Bradford, but retains its own distinct character.
Greetland and West Yorkshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout HX postcodes, our teams that cover Greetland — a residential suburb — work the surrounding locations too, Lindwell and Cross Hill among them. Fastest of all: give a HX4 8 postcode for our van.
There's no need to shift the car. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Greetland Park, a side street near Cross Hills Methodist Church: we drain it where it is. Assuming won't help behind Greetland Community & Sports Centre, close to a border, or somewhere awkward to pin down; ring and check.
The short version for Greetland people
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere across West Yorkshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — and so leave the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103.