How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Rowley Fields
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then put this page aside a moment, leave the ignition and motor off, then phone 0333 366 0103. Normally, if your motor has not run, it's drained and thoroughly rinsed where the vehicle sits in Rowley Fields. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Plenty of current diesels on the roads about Rowley Fields and Westcotes carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where spraying cleans the gas.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on a lot of cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the pump, the diesel side gets filled constantly. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think what filler to use. The slip lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Rowley Fields
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Braunstone Lane East before work, or in the car park at Braunstone & District Working Mens Club on the way home.
Then, the hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old motor — since a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
A spouted bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, once begun, carries on. Whether it occurs in Braunstone Town or the middle of Rowley Fields, it's the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Rowley Fields forecourt or a driveway over in Fosse Park, take a couple of seconds on these before anything goes in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually isn't. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Check inside your fuel flap: many cars carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver will know. Check when you pick up a rental or company car — at Leicester's car park, say — rather than when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Leicestershire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Narborough Road South, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off properly.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, but it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the car on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Find during the second or third step that AdBlue went in the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Do not go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Rowley Fields?
Brief order, then. First: your motor remains unstarted. Keep the ignition off as well, since on many diesels switching it on alone starts your fuel pump. Filling up with diesel won't dilute it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of your tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help roll the vehicle away from the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Esso, the Asda or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive in Rowley Fields.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. The next junction is the place to come off when you're on the M1, under 3 miles from Rowley Fields. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Leicester, under 3 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Rowley Fields.
Rowley Fields: what takes place when our engineers turn up
Anywhere your car has stopped, be it by Caldecote Community Primary School, near Leicester Buddhist Vihara or at home, our van travels to it. Our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and whether it has run, since the answers determine this work and the price. On the call itself, you are told the price — before dispatch.
Then your tank is cleared and the system rinsed thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and neither washes away unaided. Hence it matters more. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Before leaving, our technicians start the car and make sure that it is running correctly.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the engine has not run take roughly half an hour once our technicians are there. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours once this job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Before we get there, have a look at your policy; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Rowley Fields itself
Rowley Fields is a suburban area located on the outskirts of Leicester, near the River Soar, with an elevation of around 65 metres. Rowley Fields sits close to neighbouring areas such as Braunstone Town, Aylestone, and Aylestone Park, and is approximately 2 miles from Leicester city centre. Rowley Fields is characterized by its semi-detached housing stock and is home to around 5925 residents. Rowley Fields is also within commuting distance to London, being around 88 miles away.
AdBlue drains about Rowley Fields, and Leicestershire beyond
Being a residential suburb, Rowley Fields has the same vans as surrounding areas — Aylestone, Aylestone Park — right through LE postcodes and the wider area beyond. Fastest of all: give a LE3 2 postcode to our van.
Shifting the car isn't needed. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Franklin Park, a side street close to Trinity: we drain the vehicle where it sits. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of St Andrews Football Club, ring and ask instead of guessing.
Rowley Fields drivers: the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it waits, anywhere around Leicestershire.