How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Iburndale
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then set this page aside a moment, leave the ignition and engine off, then call 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Iburndale. Here before the event? In that case what follows covers why it comes about and how to stop it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Diesel goes to your engine — but many current diesels driven round Iburndale and Briggswath hold another fluid as well. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
Each tank has its own filler. Some vehicles put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place both side by side under one flap. Diesel gets filled at each forecourt visit, week in, week out. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, poured by a driver who must stop and think what filler it needs. The slip lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur in Iburndale?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Haste follows from the warning. The vehicle warns 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 The Cliff, or heading home in the car park at Plough Inn.
Then, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old motor — since a hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
Lastly, the bottle goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in as readily, and once the pour starts, no part stops it. Ugglebarnby or the heart of Iburndale: it is the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these first, on a forecourt in Iburndale or a driveway over in Sneaton. Seconds, that's all.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally do not.
- Many vehicles give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of motors have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler is if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Sleights, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
For the day the light appears — wherever you are in North Yorkshire — a simple routine to follow.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, motor off, and not in a rush beside Brookside at the roadside.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you've found your filler and read it.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave it on.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then check again — making sure the diesel cap remained closed throughout. After that, start your car.
Discover at the second or third step that the bottle went in the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Don't go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Iburndale already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the motor. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels as soon as the ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Filling up with diesel will not dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of that tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help roll the car away from the pump if you are at a forecourt — the Ruswarp Service Station, the Shell or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive around Iburndale.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. The next exit is the place to leave if you are on the A1(M), under 50 miles from Iburndale. A short hop across Iburndale is a smaller job than a run towards York, under 50 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
What occurs when our engineers arrive around Iburndale
Wherever the vehicle has stopped, whether by Sleights Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School, near Saint John the Evangelist or on your own drive, the van travels to it. Which liquid was put in, the amount, and whether it ran: we ask because the replies decide the work and price. You hear that quote on the phone, before anyone heads out.
Then your tank is cleared and the fuel system cleaned thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. After the filter has been cleaned — or replaced, if required — clean diesel is added, and finally the vehicle is tested. Before we go, our engineers start the engine and make sure that it's running smoothly.
Unstarted vehicles mostly need a half-hour visit after the moment we arrive. The equipment is fine on a busy filling station, and quiet enough for a residential street late at night. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork your insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Iburndale and where it is
Iburndale is a small hamlet situated on the banks of a river in North Yorkshire, with an elevation of around 22 metres. Iburndale lies near the villages of Ugglebarnby and Sleights, and is close to the Eskdaleside area. Iburndale has a population of approximately 797 people, living in predominantly semi-detached housing. Iburndale is located about 38 miles from the city of York, and some 205 miles north of London.
AdBlue drains across North Yorkshire, Iburndale included
Throughout YO postcodes, the vans covering Iburndale — a rural hamlet — work the surrounding places too, Eskdaleside and Sleights among them. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting YO22 5.
Shifting the vehicle isn't necessary. Wherever it sits — beside All Saints, in a layby en route to Stray Head Banks, on a drive — that's where it gets drained. Assuming won't help at the back of Gibson Cabinet Makers, close to a boundary, or anywhere awkward to describe; ring and ask.
Iburndale motorists: the short version
Tip nothing until you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere around North Yorkshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — so leave the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103.