AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Highlane: How It Happens and How to Avoid It
Stop reading a minute if the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then call 0333 366 0103. In Highlane, finding it before the motor turns normally leaves draining and a full flush on the spot. The remainder of this page covers why it takes place and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you are reading before it has happened.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
No single liquid but two: that is what many modern diesels around Highlane and Ridgeway carry, with diesel feeding the motor. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the gas to clean them, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of vehicles share a single flap for the two, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, the diesel side gets filled all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. The mistake lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur around Highlane?
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things lining up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off High Lane before work, or in the car park at Queens Head on the way home.
The old car's cap is where your hand reaches — yet a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That's the second factor: an unfamiliar vehicle.
Lastly, the spout goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in just as readily, and after the tip begins, nothing stops it. Ridgeway Moor or the heart of Highlane: it is the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
A few seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Plumbley or a forecourt in Highlane.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Look inside the fuel flap: many motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by the diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Woodhouse, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
When the light goes on, wherever around South Yorkshire, use this routine.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time to spare — not rushing on the side of Teesdale Road.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — after you have located your filler and read it.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the vehicle, close the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap was never came off.
Find at stage two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? Then stop just there. Stage five stays off limits.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Highlane already?
Don't start the engine: that's where the short order of things starts. Keep your ignition off as well, because on plenty of diesels switching it on alone runs your pump. Diluting it with extra diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom rather than blending — and that's where the fuel is drawn from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it's the the nearest petrol station or the Asda, ask the attendants to help push your car clear of the pump. If you are on your own drive around Highlane, leave it where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. Highlane lies under 5 miles from the M1; on it, use the first exit. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Highlane is less work than a trip of under 5 miles to Sheffield, and so say.
What happens when we arrive in Highlane
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Ridgeway Primary School, close to St John the Evangelist or on your own driveway. Our engineers ask what got in, about how much, and whether it's run, since the replies settle this work and the price. That quote comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
The fuel system is then cleaned thoroughly, after that tank is drained. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes away unaided. Hence it counts more. Once the fuel filter is cleaned — or renewed, where required — fresh diesel goes in, and finally your car gets tested. We don't go until it has been fired up and is running properly.
Unrun vehicles mostly mean a half-hour visit from the moment we arrive. The equipment is safe on a live forecourt, and quiet enough for a residential street late at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Highlane, for a moment
Highlane is a village situated on the riverside in South Yorkshire, with a elevation of 178 metres and a population of around 960 people. Highlane is located near several nearby places, including Ridgeway Moor, Moorhole, and Birley, and is approximately 4.7 miles from the city of Sheffield. Highlane has a predominance of detached housing and is a relatively small community. Highlane is also some distance from London, at around 136.9 miles away.
AdBlue drains across South Yorkshire, Highlane included
As a village, Highlane shares its vans nearby areas — Moorhole, Birley — all the way across S postcodes and the wider area beyond. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting S12 3.
Your car stays put. Wherever it sits — near Mosborough Through The Ages, in a lay-by en route to Kent Wood, on a drive — that's where it is emptied. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Christ Church.
In short, for Highlane people
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere around South Yorkshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — and so leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103.