How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Nithen End
Keep your motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain plus a full flush, carried out just where your car sits around Nithen End, is usually all it needs if found before the motor runs. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page covers the reasons it occurs and the ways to avoid it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds the motor — yet plenty of newer diesels seen about Nithen End and Higher Buxton hold another liquid too. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to fresh them, from its own tank.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on many motors. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. Filling the diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less commonly. The slip lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Nithen End: how it occurs
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Park Road before work, or in the car park outside Ramsay's Bar on the way home.
Next, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — since a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
Third, the spout goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in just as easily, and after the tip starts, no part stops it. The Park or the heart of Nithen End: it is the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Whether a Nithen End forecourt or a drive out in Burbage, take a couple of seconds on these before anything goes in.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Look for it.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask when you collect a rental or fleet car — from Buxton's car park, perhaps — not when the warning comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — anywhere it is around Derbyshire — a simple routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of Carlisle Road, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park and switch off first.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap works — after you've located your filler and read it.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap was never opened off.
Spot at step two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? So stop just there. Step five stays off limits.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Nithen End?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel will not weaken it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of the tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — Esso, Morrisons or another — the staff will normally help roll the car away, when you ask. If you are on your own drive in Nithen End, leave the car where it is.
Already started? Pull over once it's safe, then switch off. On the M60, under 15 miles from Nithen End, that means the next exit. A short hop across Nithen End is a smaller job than a run towards Stoke-on-Trent, under 25 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
When our technicians turn up around Nithen End, what takes place?
Our technicians come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside St Anne's Catholic Voluntary Academy, near Parish Church of St John the Baptist or on your own drive. Both the work and our price depend on three answers — which liquid, what quantity, and if it's run — so our engineers ask. Nobody sets off until you have had our quote over the phone.
Emptying the tank comes next, then a thorough flush of your system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and none of that washes away by itself. That is why it counts more. Testing is at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is cleaned or changed if necessary. Before leaving, our technicians fire it up and make sure that it is running correctly.
If your motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours once the job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. While we travel, have a look at your insurance documents; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Nithen End
Nithen End is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Derbyshire, with an elevation of 343 metres. Nithen End lies near the towns of Buxton and The Park, and is approximately 19.5 miles from Stoke-on-Trent. Nithen End has a population of around 1737 people, predominantly living in detached housing. Nithen End is located in the East Midlands region, about 143 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Derbyshire, Nithen End included
Nithen End is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the places around it, Rivers Vale and Buxton among them, across the SK postcode area. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting SK17 6.
There's no need to shift the car. Anywhere it stands — near Lismore Fields, in a layby heading to Corbar Woods, at home — that is where it gets drained. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of William Cavendish.
For Nithen End people, the short version
Pour nothing till you have read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Leave the vehicle switched off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, throughout Derbyshire.