Knavesmire: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. In Knavesmire, finding it before your motor turns normally leaves a drain and a full flush where it stands. Reading before the event? Then the rest explains how it comes about and what to prevent it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Many newer diesels in Middlethorpe, like those in Knavesmire, run on two fluids; the engine takes only the diesel. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Under one flap, side by side: that's the arrangement on many vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Diesel goes in on each forecourt visit, week in, week out. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. The slip lives in that gap.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Knavesmire: how it happens
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things lining up together.
Haste comes 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 happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off Kensington Court, or on the way home in the car park at Fox & Roman.
Unfamiliar cars are second, as well. Rentals, new cars and company motors place their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap it used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Dringhouses or the middle of Knavesmire: it takes the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these first, at a forecourt around Knavesmire or a driveway out in Low Field. Seconds, no more.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually don't.
- On plenty of vehicles, the size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside York, ask before you leave, not 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 in North Yorkshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Regency Mews, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park then switch off properly.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Knavesmire?
Short order, then. Top of that: your engine stays off. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the vehicle on. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
On a forecourt — Applegreen, Tesco or another — the staff will usually help push your car away, if you ask. If you're on your own drive in Knavesmire, leave the vehicle where it sits.
Already started? Stop when it is safe, then switch off. The next junction means the place to leave if you are on the A1(M), under 15 miles from Knavesmire. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards York, under 3 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Knavesmire.
What happens when we get there in Knavesmire
Anywhere the car came to rest, whether outside Dringhouses Primary School, beside Dringhouses Library or at home, our van travels to it. Both the work and the quote rest on three replies — what fluid, what quantity, and if it's run — so our technicians ask. No one heads out before you've heard our price by phone.
The system is then cleaned thoroughly, once your tank is drained. With AdBlue that counts 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. A test comes last: before that, fresh diesel is added, and your filter is cleaned or replaced as needed. Before leaving, our engineers fire it up and make sure that it's running properly.
If the motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Knavesmire
Knavesmire is a locality situated near the city of York in North Yorkshire, lying approximately 2 miles from the city centre. Knavesmire is characterised by its semi-detached housing and is located near other nearby places such as Dringhouses and Woodthorpe. Knavesmire has a population of around 2157 residents and is set in a relatively low-lying area at an elevation of 16 metres. Knavesmire is also close to the South Bank area, forming part of the wider York urban landscape.
AdBlue drains in Knavesmire and across North Yorkshire
Knavesmire is a neighbourhood, and our teams that cover it also work the places near it, Woodthorpe and South Bank among them, across the YO postcode area. Give a postcode that starts YO24 1, and the van gets there fastest.
The vehicle does not need to move. We drain it where it is — a side street close to St Edward the Confessor, a lay-by on the way to Dringhouses Sports Club, a driveway. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Goddards Garden.
Knavesmire drivers: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Keep it off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, throughout North Yorkshire.