How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Shepley Street
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. In Shepley Street, finding it before the motor runs normally means 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 car: two tanks, two fillers
No single fluid but two: that is how many modern diesels around Shepley Street and Lower Gamesley run, with diesel feeding the engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
Every tank has one filler of its own. Some motors put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more place both together under one flap. Topping up your diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually goes in out of a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think which cap to use. It's in that gap that the mistake happens.
Shepley Street: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Peakdale Road before work, or in the car park outside The Chieftain on the way home.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip after it has started. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Shepley Street or out in Brookfield.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A few seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Woolley Bridge or a forecourt around Shepley Street.
- Position can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps are often blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually do not.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — many cars mark which goes in which inlet right there.
- The handbook says which it is if the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Dinting? Ask the person who drove the vehicle last before leaving, not when the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Derbyshire that is.
- Pull in somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Spring Water Drive.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It seems silly. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Before you start the vehicle, shut the cap and check a second time that your diesel cap never opened off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to stage five.
Shepley Street: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Short list, then. First: your engine remains unstarted. Leave your ignition off too, because on many diesels switching it on alone runs your fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help push your car away from the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the BP, the Tesco or somewhere else. At home in Shepley Street? So the vehicle remains where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. Come off the M67 — under 3 miles out of Shepley Street — at the next junction. About how far did it go? Hopping across Shepley Street is smaller work than a run of under 15 miles towards Manchester, so say.
Our arrival around Shepley Street, and what happens next
Our engineers come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Gamesley Primary School, close to Melandra Castle or on your own driveway. Our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and if it has run, because those answers decide the work and our quote. The price comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Then that tank is emptied and your system rinsed thoroughly. 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. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Next we start it and make sure it runs properly before leaving.
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 working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Nothing in advance; you settle up on the day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Shepley Street and where it is
Shepley Street is a locality in Derbyshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 152 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Shepley Street lies near several other local places, including Brookfield, Shaw, and Gamesley, and is approximately 10.9 miles from Manchester. Shepley Street is also relatively distant from London, at around 155.5 miles away. Shepley Street has a population of around 1513 people, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains about Shepley Street, and Derbyshire beyond
Shaw and Gamesley are among the places around Shepley Street, a small village, that the same teams cover, over SK postcodes. Fastest of all: quote a SK13 6 postcode for the van.
Shifting the car isn't needed. Draining happens on the spot, whether a drive, a road by Glossop Padel, or a layby towards Hadfield St Andrews Cricket Club. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Bishop Geoffrey Allen Church.
The short version for Shepley Street drivers
Read the cap before you tip. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep the vehicle switched off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, throughout Derbyshire.