Hayfield Green: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, carried out just where the car sits around Hayfield Green, is usually all it takes when caught before the motor runs. The rest of this page covers why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't — handy if you are reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels around Blaxton, like those in Hayfield Green, run on two liquids; your motor gets just your diesel. The exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the fumes to fresh it, from a separate tank.
There is a filler on every tank. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on a lot of cars. On others, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in your boot instead. At the pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. Much less often, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Hayfield Green: how it occurs
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from your car, and running out means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Walnut Avenue, or at The Running Horse on the way home after work.
New-to-you motors come next, too. Rentals, new motors and company cars place their fillers differently, and habit goes for the cap used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, after started, keeps on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Hayfield Green or out in Lidget.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Hayfield Green forecourt or a drive out in Branton, take a couple of seconds over these before any is poured in.
- Position can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones are often blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally don't.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on many motors. Check for it.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Doncaster? Check with the person who drove it last before you set off, rather than once the light goes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in South Yorkshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Fir Tree Avenue, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park and switch off first.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. When the two sit under a flap, confirm it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Never go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Hayfield Green already?
Brief order, then. First: your motor stays unstarted. Do not switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
Ask the staff to help roll the car away from the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Esso, the Asda or somewhere else. Your own driveway around Hayfield Green is where it should stay.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Hayfield Green lies under 3 miles from the M18; on it, take the first junction. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Hayfield Green is smaller work than a run of under 10 miles towards Doncaster, so tell us.
What happens when our technicians get there around Hayfield Green
Our van comes to the vehicle wherever it stopped — your own driveway, near Yorkshire Wildlife Park, or by Hayfield Lane Primary School. What liquid was put in, the quantity, and if it ran: we ask because the replies set the work and quote. The price is given over the phone, before any van leaves.
After that: a drain, then a full flush of the entire system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Before we go, our engineers start the car and make sure that it's running correctly.
Unrun vehicles usually need a half-hour visit from the moment we arrive. The equipment is fine on a live forecourt, and hushed enough for a driveway late at night. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Hayfield Green
Hayfield Green is a village in South Yorkshire, situated near the city of Doncaster and close to the villages of Lidget, Auckley, and Finningley. Hayfield Green has a relatively low elevation of 12 metres above sea level, and its population of around 2095 people live in predominantly semi-detached housing. Hayfield Green is located inland, approximately 142 miles north of London.
AdBlue drains round Hayfield Green, and South Yorkshire beyond
Auckley and Finningley are among the towns near Hayfield Green, a rural village, that the same vans cover, throughout DN postcodes. Give a postcode beginning DN9 3, and the van arrives quickest.
Your car does not need to shift. We drain it where it is — a side street near The Vulcan Experience, a lay-by on the way to the green space at the edge of the village, a driveway. Awkward to explain, like the back of Ferris Wheel? Close to a county line? Checking beats assuming, and so phone.
In short, for Hayfield Green drivers
Before you pour, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it sits, anywhere across South Yorkshire.