AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Little Common: Why It Happens and How to Avoid It
Keep the motor and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Normally, if the motor has not turned, it's emptied and fully purged where your vehicle is in Little Common. The rest of this page explains why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't — handy if you are reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads about Little Common and Bents Green carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to clean them, from a separate tank.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in on each forecourt visit, week in, week out. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. The slip lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur around Little Common?
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the car, and letting it run out means limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Little Common Lane, perhaps at Rising Sun on the way home that evening.
The old car's cap is where the hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That's the second thing: a new motor.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, once started, carries on. Whirlow or the middle of Little Common: it is the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Little Common forecourt or a drive over in Abbeydale, spend a few seconds over these before any is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Look for it.
- The handbook shows where it is when your filler is not next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Dore & Totley, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach 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 Ecclesall Road South, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off properly.
- 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 a single flap? Then confirm the lid on the diesel side stays closed ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the car, shut the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap was never came off.
Find at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop right there. Never go on to stage five.
Little Common: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Brief order, then. Top of that: the motor stays off. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the staff to help roll the car clear of the pump if you are at a forecourt — the Tesco, the Sainsbury's or somewhere else. If you're on your own drive around Little Common, leave the vehicle where it sits.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the motor has already run. Come off the M1 — under 10 miles out of Little Common — at the first exit. Distance matters — a short hop across Little Common makes a smaller job than driving under 5 miles to Sheffield — so say about how far it went.
When we get there around Little Common, what happens?
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Dobcroft Junior School, near Whirlow Spirituality Centre at the Chapel of the Holy Spirit or on your own drive. Both the work and our quote depend on three replies — which liquid, what amount, and whether it has run — so our technicians ask. The price comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
The fuel system is then cleaned thoroughly, once your tank is cleared. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Filter flushed or, where it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; then a check of the vehicle. Before leaving, our technicians fire it up and confirm that it's running properly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after our technicians get there, as long as the motor has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet at night beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Little Common and where it is
Little Common is a suburban area situated on the outskirts of Sheffield, near the riverside and close to Whirlow and Whirlow Brook. Little Common sits at an elevation of 203 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation in the area. Little Common is located approximately 3.5 miles from Sheffield city centre, making it a convenient residential location. Little Common has a population of around 2876 residents, according to recent estimates.
Little Common and South Yorkshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Little Common is a residential suburb, and our teams that cover it also work the towns near it, Whirlow Brook and Parkhead among them, across the S postcode area. A postcode starting S11 9 gets our van to you fastest.
Moving the car is not needed. Anywhere it stands — near Ecclesall Woods Sawmill, on a layby heading to Ecclesall Woods, at home — that is where it gets drained. Awkward to explain, like the back of Whirlow Hall Farm Trust? Close to a county line? Asking is better than assuming, so ring.
For Little Common people, the short version
Always, the cap; after that, the pour. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it wherever it stands, wherever in South Yorkshire: switch it off then ring 0333 366 0103.