Nether Heage: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Pause reading a minute when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Nether Heage. The rest of this page covers why it takes place and how to ensure it does not — handy if you're reading ahead of time.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels in Sawmills, like those in Nether Heage, carry on two liquids; the engine gets just your diesel. The exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the gas to clean it, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Some motors put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place the two together behind one flap. The diesel side is topped up at the petrol pump all the time. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side gets topped up — normally from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. Mistakes happen in that gap between them.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs in Nether Heage
It's hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a drive off Malthouse Lane before work, or in the car park outside The Spanker on the way home: that is where the hurried top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and once it is empty, limp mode kicks in.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, once started, carries on. Ridgeway or the heart of Nether Heage: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt in Nether Heage or a driveway over in Ladygrove. A few seconds, that's all.
- Read the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally are not.
- Many cars fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says which it is when your filler is not next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver will know. Ask when you collect a rental or company car — from Ambergate's car park, perhaps — rather than once the light appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Wherever in Derbyshire the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Gun Lane.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, yes, yet it works.
- The two behind a single flap? So make sure the cap on your diesel filler stays closed before raising the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, shut the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap never came off.
Discover during the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Do not go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Nether Heage?
Brief list, then. Top of that: the motor stays unstarted. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch it on. Thinning it with more diesel won't work, because AdBlue settles to the base rather than mixing — and that is where the fuel is sucked from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the Essar or the JET, ask the staff to help roll your car away from the petrol pump. Your own driveway around Nether Heage is the place it stays.
Already run? Stop when it's safe, then switch off. Come off the M1 — under 10 miles out of Nether Heage — at the next junction. Mileage counts — a short hop across Nether Heage makes a smaller job than heading under 10 miles to Derby — so tell us about how far it went.
When our engineers get there in Nether Heage, what takes place?
By Heage Primary School, near Heage Windmill or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, we come to it. The answers decide this work and the price, and so we ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run. During the call itself, you are told our quote — ahead of anything else.
Then your tank is drained and the fuel system cleaned thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more here than with petrol. Once your filter is flushed — or replaced, where needed — clean diesel is added, and finally the vehicle gets tested. Before we leave, our engineers start the engine and make sure that it is running smoothly.
If the 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. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Before we get there, have a look at your policy; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Nether Heage
Nether Heage is a village in Derbyshire, situated on the banks of the River Derwent at an elevation of 114 metres. Nether Heage lies approximately 8.9 miles from Derby and 120.8 miles from London, with nearby villages including Ridgeway, Toadmoor, and Heage. Nether Heage has a population of around 601 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing.
AdBlue drains in Nether Heage and across Derbyshire
Over DE postcodes, our teams covering Nether Heage — a village — work the nearby spots too, Heage and Toadmoor included. Quote a postcode beginning DE56 2, and our van arrives quickest.
The vehicle stays put. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Dunge Wood, a side street near Heage Village Hall: our technicians drain the vehicle where it sits. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of St Luke's Church, Heage, ring and ask instead of guessing.
In short, for Nether Heage drivers
Tip no AdBlue until you have read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it wherever it stands, wherever in Derbyshire: switch the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.