Knowl Wood: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Leave your motor and ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain plus a full flush, done just where the car stands in Knowl Wood, is normally what it takes when found before your engine runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Not one fluid but two: that is how plenty of modern diesels near Knowl Wood and Salford run, with diesel for the engine. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. Many of cars share a single flap for the two, while some put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Filling your diesel side at the pump happens constantly. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. That gap is where the slip lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place around Knowl Wood?
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the vehicle, and letting it run dry means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Henshaw Woods, perhaps outside The Woodpecker Inn on the way home after work.
Then the vehicle is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing stops the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It takes a few seconds, whether in Gauxholme or bang in the centre of Knowl Wood.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these first, on a forecourt around Knowl Wood or a drive out in Ramsden Wood. A few seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually isn't. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- Can't find it next to the diesel inlet? In that case check beneath the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook will say where.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask when you pick up a hire car or fleet car — at Walsden's car park, say — rather than once the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in West Yorkshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Henshaw Road, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park then switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- Both behind one flap? So confirm the cap on the diesel filler is still closed before lifting the bottle.
- Stop when the tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; before that, pour gently through its own spout.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Discover at the second or third step that AdBlue went in the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Leave out step five altogether.
Knowl Wood: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Brief order, then. Top of it: the engine remains unstarted. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels as soon as the ignition goes on — so keep it off. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
Ask the staff to help roll the vehicle clear of the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Shell, the Texaco or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive in Knowl Wood.
Already started? Pull over once it's sensible, then turn off. On the M62, under 10 miles from Knowl Wood, that means the next exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Bradford, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Knowl Wood.
What happens when our engineers arrive around Knowl Wood
Outside Walsden St Peter's CE (VC) Primary School, near St Peter or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Both the work and the quote rest on three replies — what fluid, what amount, and whether it's run — so we ask. The price is given on the call, before any van leaves.
After that: draining, then a full flush of the entire system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Before we leave, our engineers start the engine and check that it's running correctly.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor has not run take about half an hour after we arrive. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Knowl Wood itself
Knowl Wood is a locality situated on the shores of a lake in West Yorkshire, with an elevation of around 230 metres. Knowl Wood lies approximately 15.5 miles from Bradford and is surrounded by nearby places such as Gauxholme, Walsden, and Shade. Knowl Wood has a population of around 934 people and predominantly features terraced housing. Knowl Wood is located in a scenic area, with its lakeside setting providing a unique environment.
Knowl Wood and West Yorkshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Being a small village, Knowl Wood has the same vans as surrounding areas — Walsden, Shade — right across OL postcodes and the wider area around them. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting OL14 6.
The car stays where it is. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Walsden Library, a lay-by on the way to Spring Wood, a drive. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of John Cockroft.
The short version for Knowl Wood drivers
Read the cap before you tip. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Leave it off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, across West Yorkshire.