Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Sandybed
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Around Sandybed, finding it before your motor runs usually leaves a drain and a full flush on the spot. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Diesel feeds the motor — yet many current diesels driven round Sandybed and Edgehill hold another fluid too. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, where a spray treats the fumes.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at every filling station visit, again and again. The AdBlue side is topped up far less frequently, usually from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Sandybed: how it occurs
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things coming up together.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from your car, and running out leads to limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Fenby Gardens, or at Crown Tavern on the way home after work.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it happens in Woodlands or the middle of Sandybed, it's the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Lady Ediths or a forecourt around Sandybed, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly 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.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — plenty of motors mark which belongs in each inlet right there.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler is if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The previous driver will know. Check when you collect a hire car or fleet car — at Scarborough's car park, say — rather than when the light appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
On the day the warning appears — anywhere it is across North Yorkshire — a simple routine to use.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Sandybed Crescent.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, perhaps, yet it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, make sure it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Stop once the tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour slowly through the own spout.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Leave out step five altogether.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Sandybed already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your engine. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch it on. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is sucked from.
The staff at Penny Petrolium, Sainsbury's or any forecourt will normally lend a hand pushing the vehicle clear if asked. On your own drive around Sandybed? So your car remains where it is.
Already run? Stop when it is sensible, then switch off. On the Petuaria Way, under 50 miles from Sandybed, that means the next exit. A short hop across Sandybed is a smaller job than a run towards York, under 50 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival in Sandybed, and what occurs next
The van reaches the vehicle anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or by Thomas Hinderwell Primary Academy. Both the work and the quote rest on three replies — what fluid, what quantity, and whether it's run — so our technicians ask. You get that quote by phone, before anybody heads out.
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, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. Testing comes at the end: before that, clean diesel is added, and the fuel filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. After that our technicians fire it up and check it runs smoothly before we leave.
If your motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It is worth looking at your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Sandybed itself
Sandybed is a suburban area located on the coast of North Yorkshire, with an elevation of around 80 metres. Sandybed sits near the communities of Woodlands, Falsgrave, and Prospect Mount, and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Sandybed is situated approximately 34 miles from the city of York and 192 miles from London, making it a relatively remote but still accessible residential area.
AdBlue drains around Sandybed, and North Yorkshire beyond
Falsgrave and Prospect Mount are among the places around Sandybed, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, throughout YO postcodes. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting YO12 5.
Moving the vehicle is not necessary. Wherever it stands — near St Luke, on a lay-by heading to Falsgrave Park, at home — that's where it gets cleared. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Scarborough Table Tennis Centre, ring and ask instead of guessing.
For Sandybed people, the short version
Pour nothing until you've read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, throughout North Yorkshire.