AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Stapleford: How It Occurs and How to Prevent It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and your ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Normally, if your engine hasn't turned, it's drained and fully purged where your vehicle is around Stapleford. The rest of this page covers why it happens and how to ensure it does not — handy if you are reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads round Stapleford and Stanton-by-Dale carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to clean it, from its own tank.
Every tank has one filler of its own. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Filling your diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. Far less frequently, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. It is in the gap that the error happens.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place in Stapleford
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Nottingham Road before work, or in the car park outside Larry's on the way home.
Then the vehicle is new. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Third, the bottle goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in as easily, and once the tip begins, no part stops it. It's seconds, whether in Stanton Gate or bang in the centre of Stapleford.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Trowell or a forecourt around Stapleford, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue ones are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally aren't.
- On many motors, size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Look for it.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Attenborough.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
Wherever across Nottinghamshire the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Derby Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, but it works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Step five is out.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Stapleford?
Short order, then. First: your engine remains unstarted. Leave your ignition off too, since on plenty of diesels it alone starts the pump. Topping up with diesel won't dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
At a forecourt — Esso, Gulf or another — the staff will usually help push your car away, when you ask. On your own drive in Stapleford? Then the car stays put.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the motor has already run. Stapleford lies under a mile from the M1; on it, take the next junction. A short hop across Stapleford is a smaller job than a run towards Nottingham, under 10 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
What happens when we turn up in Stapleford
Our van comes to the car anywhere it stopped — your own drive, near Stapleford Church of Christ, or by Fairfield Spencer Academy. Both the work and the quote depend on three answers — which fluid, which quantity, and whether it has run — so our technicians ask. On the phone call itself, you hear the quote — ahead of anything else.
Emptying that tank comes next, followed by a full flush of your system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and none of it clears out unaided. That is why it counts more. Filter cleaned or, where it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; then a check of your car. Your engine is fired up next and checked to make sure it runs correctly, all before our technicians leave.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your engine has not run take about half an hour after our engineers are there. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Stapleford
Stapleford is a town situated on the River Erewash in Nottinghamshire, with a population of around 19380 people. Stapleford lies close to the city of Nottingham, approximately 5.5 miles to the southeast, and is near other local places such as Stanton Gate, Sandiacre, and Bramcote. Stapleford has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are particularly prevalent in the area. Stapleford's riverside setting and relatively low elevation of 47 metres give it a distinctive character within the East Midlands region.
AdBlue drains around Stapleford and across Nottinghamshire
Over NG postcodes, our vans covering Stapleford — a riverside town — work the nearby places too, Bramcote and Sandiacre included. A postcode starting NG9 8 gets the van to you fastest.
The vehicle stays put. We drain it where it is — a side street near Stapleford Community Centre, a lay-by on the way to Queen Elizabeth II Park, a drive. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Stapleford Library, ring and ask rather than assuming.
For Stapleford motorists, the short version
Tip no AdBlue until you've read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Keep it off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Nottinghamshire.