AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Harden: Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, done right where the car stands around Harden, is usually all it needs when caught before your motor runs. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the page covers the reasons it takes place and the how to avoid it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels in Carlecotes, like those in Harden, run on two liquids; your engine gets only your diesel. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to fresh it, from a separate tank.
There's a filler for each tank. Under one flap, side by side: that's the arrangement on a lot of cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled constantly. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, poured by a driver who has to stop and think what filler to use. That gap is where the error lives.
Harden: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
Carelessness rarely causes it. What does is three things lining up at once.
Hurry follows from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a driveway off Flight Hill, or heading home in the car park outside the pub in the village.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, once begun, keeps on. It takes a few seconds, be it in Dunford Bridge or bang in the centre of Harden.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Whether a Harden forecourt or a drive out in Barnside, take a couple of seconds on these before anything goes in.
- Position can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally do not.
- Plenty of vehicles fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask when you pick up a hire car or company car — from Brockholes's car park, say — rather than when the warning comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
The day the light comes on, anywhere across South Yorkshire, use this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Bare Bones Road.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Do not go on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Harden?
Do not start your motor: that is how the short order of things starts. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the car on. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help push the vehicle away from the pump if you're on a forecourt — the Murco, the Yorkshire Fuels or somewhere else. If you're on your own drive in Harden, leave it where it sits.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. On the M62, under 10 miles from Harden, that means the next exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Wakefield, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Harden.
What happens when we turn up around Harden
Our van reaches the vehicle anywhere it stopped — your own drive, near Pennine Sailing Club, or by Hade Edge Junior, Infant and Nursery School. Which liquid went in, the amount, and if it ran: our technicians ask since those answers decide both work and price. You get that price on the phone, before anyone heads out.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither clears away by itself. Hence it matters more. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Your engine is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs correctly, all before our engineers head off.
If the engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. While we travel, take a look at your insurance documents; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Harden, briefly
Harden is a small hamlet situated on the edge of a lake in South Yorkshire, with a elevation of 298 metres. Harden sits in a rural area, close to the villages of Dunford Bridge and Hade Edge, and is approximately 15 miles from Wakefield. Harden is characterised by its detached housing and quiet lakeside setting. Harden is located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region, about 156 miles north of London.
AdBlue drains around Harden and across South Yorkshire
Being a rural hamlet, Harden shares its vans surrounding places — Townhead, Hade Edge — right through HD postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting HD9 2.
The car doesn't need to shift. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Dearden Foot Plantation, a side street close to Hade Edge Village Hall: our engineers drain the vehicle where it is. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Hade Edge Methodist Church, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Harden drivers: the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere around South Yorkshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — so leave the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103.