Middleton: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Stop reading for a moment when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Usually, when the engine has not run, it's emptied and thoroughly flushed where the car is in Middleton. The remainder of this page explains why it happens and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you're reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many current diesels on the roads about Middleton and Robin Hood carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, and there spraying cleans the fumes.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of cars have a single flap for the two, whereas others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in at every filling station call-out, again and again. Seldom topped up, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, tipped by someone who has to stop and think what cap it needs. It is in that gap that the mistake happens.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank take place in Middleton?
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the car, and letting it run out leads to limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Manor Farm Way, or outside Middleton Conservative Club on the way home after work.
Unfamiliar motors come next, as well. Hire cars, new vehicles and company vehicles put their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap used on the old one.
Third, the bottle goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in as easily, and after the tip starts, nothing halts it. It takes seconds, whether out in Beeston Park Side or bang in the centre of Middleton.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A few seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you pour anything, on a drive in Hunslet Carr or a forecourt in Middleton.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually do not.
- Plenty of vehicles give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask when you collect a hire car or company car — from Morley's car park, say — rather than when the warning comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
When the light goes on, wherever across West Yorkshire, use this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Lingwell Avenue.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- The two under a single flap? So make sure the lid on the diesel side stays closed ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Finish when your tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour slowly through the built-in spout.
- Before starting your car, shut the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap was never opened off.
Find at the second or third stage that the bottle went into the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Never go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Middleton?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your motor. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Thinning it with extra diesel won't work, since AdBlue settles to the base rather than blending — and that is where the fuel is drawn from.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it's the Texaco or the Asda, ask the staff to help roll your car clear of the petrol pump. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive around Middleton.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next junction means the place to come off if you are on the M1, under a mile from Middleton. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Leeds, under 5 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Middleton.
Our arrival around Middleton, and what occurs next
Our van reaches the car anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, or by Middleton St Mary's Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School. Both the work and the quote rest on three answers — which fluid, what amount, and whether it's run — so our engineers ask. No one sets off before you have heard our price by phone.
After that: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. With AdBlue that matters 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. Once the fuel filter is cleaned — or replaced, if required — clean diesel goes in, and finally your car gets tested. Next we start the car and confirm it runs properly before we go.
If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. No money upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. It's worth checking your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Middleton and where it is
Middleton is a suburban area located near Leeds in West Yorkshire, sitting at an elevation of 131 metres in the inland landscape of the county. Middleton forms part of the larger Leeds urban area, with its semi-detached housing stock reflecting the typical residential development of the region. Middleton is close to several nearby places, including Beeston Park Side and Thorpe on the Hill, and is about 3.4 miles from Leeds city centre.
AdBlue drains around Middleton and across West Yorkshire
Over LS postcodes, our vans that cover Middleton — a residential suburb — work the surrounding locations too, Thorpe on The Hill and Thorpe on the Hill included. A postcode starting LS10 3 gets the van to you fastest.
Shifting the vehicle is not needed. Wherever it stands — beside St Mary's Parochial Hall, on a layby heading to Leeds Corinthians Rugby Union Football Club, at home — that is where it gets cleared. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Middleton Leisure Centre.
For Middleton drivers, the short version
Pour nothing till you have read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Leave the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, across West Yorkshire.