Heath: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave your engine and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before the engine runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Heath. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the page covers the why it occurs and the ways to avoid it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Many modern diesels on the roads about Heath and Sutton Scarsdale carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on a lot of motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Diesel goes in on each filling station visit, week in, week out. Much less commonly, the AdBlue side is filled — normally from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. The mistake grows in the gap between them.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens around Heath
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the vehicle, and running dry means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Slack Lane, or outside Elm Tree on the way home that evening.
New-to-you cars are second, as well. Hire cars, new motors and company motors place their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the pour after it has started. Owlcotes or the heart of Heath: it is the same few seconds either way.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Look at these before pouring, at a forecourt in Heath or a driveway out in Stainsby Common. A few seconds, that's all.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally aren't.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Open the filler flap and look for a label — many vehicles show which goes in each inlet just there.
- Cannot find it beside the diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or inside the boot — the handbook will say where.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Chesterfield? Ask whoever drove it last before you set off, not once the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Derbyshire that is.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, engine off, and never rushed by Moorland Drive on the verge.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud while unscrewing it. It seems daft. It works.
- The diesel cap stays on. When both sit under a flap, confirm it's closed before lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then look again — confirm your diesel cap stayed shut throughout. After that, start the vehicle.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? Then stop right there. Skip step five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Heath?
Don't start your engine: that's how the short order of things begins. Keep your ignition off too, because on many diesels it by itself runs your fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it is the Shell or the Esso, ask the attendants to help push the car clear of the petrol pump. Your own drive around Heath is the place it stays.
Already run? Stop when it is sensible, then turn off. On the M1, under a mile from Heath, that means the next exit. Mileage counts — a short hop across Heath makes a smaller job than heading under 15 miles towards Sheffield — so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival in Heath, and what happens next
The van comes to the vehicle wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, near Heath Village Hall, or by Heath Primary School. The replies settle the work and the price, so our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it has run. The quote comes over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
The system is then flushed thoroughly, once your tank is drained. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more here than with petrol. After the filter has been flushed — or renewed, if needed — clean diesel goes in, and finally the car is tested. The motor is started next and checked to be sure it runs properly, all before our technicians leave.
If your engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. It's worth checking your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Heath
Heath is a small village in Derbyshire, situated on the riverside in the East Midlands region of England. Heath sits at an elevation of 155 metres, approximately 13.8 miles from Sheffield and 127.5 miles from London. Heath has a population of around 621 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing, and is near to other local places such as Owlcotes, Holmewood, and Williamthorpe.
AdBlue drains across Derbyshire, Heath included
Being a village, Heath shares its vans surrounding areas — Holmewood, Williamthorpe — all the way across S postcodes and the wider area beyond. Give a postcode that starts S44 5, and our van gets there quickest.
Moving the car is not needed. Draining takes place right there, be it a drive, a street by All Saints - Heath, or a layby towards Masefield Park. Awkward to pin down, like the back of St Albans Parish Centre? By a county line? Asking beats guessing, and so ring.
For Heath drivers, the short version
First, the cap; after that, the pour. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around Derbyshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — and so leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103.