Rowsley: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case put this page aside for now, leave your ignition and motor off, then call 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Rowsley. The rest of this page explains why it occurs and how to make sure it does not — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
No single liquid but two: that is what many newer diesels near Rowsley and Congreave carry, with diesel feeding the engine. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There is a filler on every tank. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot more place the two side by side behind one flap. The diesel side is fuelled at the petrol pump all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. Mistakes happen in that gap between them.
Rowsley: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the vehicle, and running dry means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Hinckley Court, or at Grouse and Claret on the way home after work.
Unfamiliar motors are next, as well. Rentals, new motors and company cars put their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap it used on the old one.
Nothing stops the tip once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Fallinge or the heart of Rowsley: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Beeley or a forecourt around Rowsley.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually isn't. Read it rather than going by position.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the flap and check for a label — many cars show what goes in each filler just there.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check as you pick up a rental or company car — from Matlock's car park, say — not once the warning comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
Wherever across Derbyshire the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Pull in on level, motor off, with time to spare — not rushing on the side of Chatsworth Road.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" out loud while unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- Both under one flap? Then make sure the lid on the diesel filler is still shut before raising the bottle.
- Stop once that tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour slowly through the built-in spout.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Discover at the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the diesel filler? That is where you stop. Leave out stage five entirely.
Rowsley: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Brief list, then. Top of it: your engine remains unstarted. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch it on. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of blending — and that's where the fuel is pulled from.
On a forecourt — A6 Truck Stop, Texaco or any other — the attendants will normally help push the car clear, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Rowsley.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your motor has already run. On the M1, under 15 miles from Rowsley, that means the next exit. Mileage counts — a short hop across Rowsley is a smaller job than driving under 15 miles towards Sheffield — so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival in Rowsley, and what happens next
Outside Rowsley CofE (Controlled) Primary School, near Peak Village or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, our technicians come to it. What liquid went in, the quantity, and whether it ran: we ask since the replies decide the work and quote. No one sets off until you've had our quote by phone.
Next: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and neither washes out by itself. That is why it counts more. After your filter has been flushed — or renewed, if required — clean diesel is added, and then your car gets tested. The motor is fired up next and checked to be sure it runs properly, all before our engineers go.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after we arrive, provided your engine hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a live forecourt yet quiet at night beside a house. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents your insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, have a look at your insurance documents; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Rowsley
Rowsley is a small village in Derbyshire, situated on the banks of the River Wye at an elevation of 111 metres. Rowsley lies near the villages of Fallinge, Tinkersley, and Pilhough, and is approximately 14.5 miles from Sheffield. Rowsley has a population of around 520 people and is characterised by detached housing. Rowsley is located in the East Midlands region, about 132 miles north of London.
AdBlue drains around Rowsley and across Derbyshire
Over DE postcodes, the teams that cover Rowsley — a village — work the surrounding spots too, Pilhough and Tinkersley among them. A postcode starting DE4 2 gets our van to you fastest.
Your car stays put. The drain happens on the spot, be it a driveway, a road near Otter, or a lay-by on the way to Peak Shopping Village Nature Reserve. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Rowsley Village Hall.
For Rowsley people, the short version
Pour no AdBlue till you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere in Derbyshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — and so leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103.