Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Hill Top: Why It Happens
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, carried out just where your car stands around Hill Top, is usually what it needs when found before your motor runs. Here in advance? Then the rest explains how it happens and how to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Not one liquid but two: that is what many modern diesels around Hill Top and Low Wincobank run, with diesel feeding the motor. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Different tanks, separate fillers. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. Far less frequently, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. It is in that gap that the mistake happens.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Hill Top: how it happens
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from your car, and letting it run out leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Whitley View Road, perhaps outside The Hill Top Hotel on the way home that evening.
New-to-you motors come next, as well. Rentals, new motors and company motors put their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Meadow Hall or the middle of Hill Top: it is the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Jordan or a forecourt around Hill Top, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- On plenty of cars, size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of motors show what goes in each filler right there.
- The handbook shows which it lives if your filler is not next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Meadowhall? Ask the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, rather than when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around South Yorkshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Park View Road, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park and switch off first.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you've located the filler and read it.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't carry on to step five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Hill Top already?
Don't start your motor: that is how the short order of things begins. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the car on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
At a forecourt — Sainsbury's, JET or another — the staff will normally help roll the vehicle clear, when you ask. If you are on your own driveway around Hill Top, leave the car where it is.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Hill Top sits under a mile from the M1; there, use the first exit. Distance counts — a short hop across Hill Top is a smaller job than heading under 5 miles to Sheffield — so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival around Hill Top, and what takes place next
By Blackburn Primary School, close to Blackburn Youth Club or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Those answers decide this work and the price, and so we ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it's run. You get that price on the phone, before anybody sets off.
Your system is then purged thoroughly, after your tank is cleared. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes out unaided. Hence it counts more. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. The engine is fired up next and checked to make sure it runs smoothly, all before our technicians head off.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once we arrive, as long as your engine hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a busy forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. Your insurer will ask for an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours once this job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Hill Top and where it is
Hill Top is a suburban area situated on the riverside in South Yorkshire, with a mix of semi-detached housing and local amenities. Hill Top sits at an elevation of around 110 metres, close to the city of Sheffield and near notable places like Meadow Hall and Richmond Park. Hill Top is located approximately 4 miles from Sheffield city centre, making it a convenient residential area for those working in the city. Hill Top has a population of around 2020 residents, who enjoy the area's riverside setting and proximity to local attractions.
AdBlue drains around Hill Top and across South Yorkshire
Being a residential suburb, Hill Top has the same vans as nearby areas — Blackburn, Richmond Park — right through S postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. A postcode starting S61 2 gets our van to you fastest.
There's no need to move the car. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Walkworth Wood, a side street close to Two Dinners Ignatiu: our technicians drain the vehicle where it is. Tricky to explain, like the back of Yazier? Close to a county line? Checking is better than guessing, and so phone.
Hill Top drivers: the short version
Pour nothing until you've read the cap. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it wherever it stands, wherever across South Yorkshire: keep it off and phone 0333 366 0103.