Shirland: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Leave your motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain plus a full flush, carried out just where the car sits around Shirland, is normally all it needs when found before your engine runs. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page explains the why it takes place and the ways to avoid it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of modern diesels around Toadhole Furnace, like those in Shirland, run on two fluids; the engine gets only the diesel. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
There is a filler for every tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on a lot of motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. Much less frequently, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. That gap is where the slip lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur around Shirland?
It's rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a driveway off Wellington Park before work, or in the car park outside Red Lion heading home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car tells you, and if it is gone, limp mode kicks in.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle 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.
A spouted bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, after started, keeps on. Whether it happens in Hallfield Gate or the middle of Shirland, it's the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a drive in Morton or a forecourt in Shirland.
- Read the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally are not.
- Many vehicles give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- Cannot find it beside the diesel filler? Then look beneath the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook says where.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Alfreton? Ask whoever drove it last before you set off, rather than when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Derbyshire that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of The Fox Hollies.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, yet it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and check once more — making sure your diesel cap remained closed the whole time. Only then, start the car.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop right there. Step five stays off limits.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Shirland already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your motor. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Diluting it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of blending — and that is where the fuel is sucked from.
Ask the attendants to help push the vehicle away from the petrol pump if you are at a forecourt — the Esso, the JET or anywhere else. If you're on your own drive in Shirland, leave the car where it stands.
Where your engine has been run already, stop safely and turn the vehicle off. Come off the M1 — under 3 miles out of Shirland — at the next exit. Mileage counts — a short hop across Shirland is a smaller job than heading under 15 miles to Derby — so say about how far it went.
When our engineers get there in Shirland, what takes place?
By Shirland Primary School, near St Leonard's or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, we come to it. Our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, because those answers settle this work and our price. You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out.
Then that tank is cleared and your system flushed thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more here than with petrol. After the fuel filter has been cleaned — or replaced, if required — fresh diesel is added, and then the car gets tested. The motor is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs properly, all before our engineers go.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after our engineers get there, as long as the motor hasn't run — and the pumps we use are fine on a live forecourt and quiet after dark beside a house. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Shirland
Shirland is a village in Derbyshire, situated inland at an elevation of 141 metres, approximately 14 miles from Derby. Shirland has a population of around 1410 people and is characterised by semi-detached housing. Shirland is located near other small settlements such as Hallfield Gate, Higham, and Mickley, and is about 124 miles from London.
AdBlue drains round Shirland, and Derbyshire beyond
Higham and Mickley are among the places near Shirland, a rural village, that the same teams cover, throughout DE postcodes. A postcode starting DE55 6 gets the van to you fastest.
Your car remains where it is. Draining takes place on the spot, whether a driveway, a street near Stonebroom Village Hall, or a lay-by towards Shirland Golf Club. Guessing won't help at the back of Holy Cross, close to a boundary, or anywhere awkward to describe; ring and ask.
The short version for Shirland motorists
Before you tip, read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Leave it switched off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Derbyshire.