Marl Pits: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Keep the motor and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. In Marl Pits, finding it before your motor turns normally leaves a drain and a full flush where it stands. Not happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page explains the reasons it happens and the ways to avoid it for good.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels around Harewood Park, like those in Marl Pits, run on two liquids; the engine gets just your diesel. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler on each tank. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on many motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. It's in that gap that the error lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Marl Pits: how it happens
It's rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Hurry follows from the warning. The vehicle warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off Front Street, or on the way home in the car park at St Joseph's Catholic Club.
Then, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old motor — because a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not.
No part halts the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's a few seconds, be it out in Pontefract or bang in the centre of Marl Pits.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Whether a Marl Pits forecourt or a drive out in Grove Town, spend a few seconds over these before any is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually isn't. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the filler flap and look for a label — many vehicles show which goes in which inlet right there.
- The handbook. If your filler is not 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 Pontefract Tanshelf, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
For the day the warning comes on — wherever it is in West Yorkshire — a simple routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of Stuart Road, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park then switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the 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 runs out.
- Close the cap, then look once more — confirm the diesel filler stayed closed the whole time. Only then, start the vehicle.
Find during the second or third step that the bottle went in the diesel tank? That's where you stop. Do not go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Marl Pits already?
Brief order, then. Top of that: the motor stays unstarted. Leave your ignition off too, because on plenty of diesels it by itself starts the pump. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of the tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Murco, Shell or any other — the staff will normally help roll the car clear, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway in Marl Pits.
Already run? Stop when it is safe, then switch off. Marl Pits lies under 3 miles from the M62; there, use the first exit. Distance counts — a short hop across Marl Pits makes a smaller job than heading under 10 miles towards Wakefield — so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our technicians get there in Marl Pits, what happens?
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside St Joseph's Catholic Primary School Pontefract, close to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or on your own drive. Both the work and our quote depend on three answers — what fluid, what amount, and if it has run — so we ask. During the call itself, you are told the price — ahead of anything else.
Then that tank is emptied and your system flushed thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more here than with petrol. The filter cleaned or, where it must be, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a test of the car. We don't go until it has been started and is running smoothly.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor has not run take roughly half an hour once our technicians arrive. No money in advance; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Before we get there, have a look at your insurance documents; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Marl Pits
Marl Pits is a suburban area in West Yorkshire, situated approximately 7 miles from Wakefield and 159 miles from London. Marl Pits has a population of around 3050 people and is characterised by semi-detached housing. Marl Pits sits at an elevation of 58 metres, in a gently sloping inland area near to Pontefract, Monkhill, and Lady Balk.
AdBlue drains across West Yorkshire, Marl Pits included
Throughout WF postcodes, our vans covering Marl Pits — a residential suburb — work the nearby spots too, Lady Balk and Monkhill among them. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting WF8 4.
No need to move the vehicle. Draining happens right there, whether a drive, a road near St. Joseph Church, or a lay-by on the way to The Lost Garden of Pontefract. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Aspire at The Park, ring and ask rather than assuming.
For Marl Pits drivers, the short version
Pour no AdBlue till you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave it off then phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it sits, anywhere across West Yorkshire.