AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Thornbury: How It Occurs and How to Prevent It
Stop reading for a moment if the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Thornbury. Here before the event? Then what follows covers why it comes about and how to stop it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Not one liquid but two: that is what plenty of modern diesels around Thornbury and Upper Fagley carry, with diesel for the motor. The exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the gas to fresh it, from a separate tank.
Different tanks, different fillers. Other vehicles put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have the two together behind one flap. Filling the diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think what filler to use. That gap is where the error lives.
Thornbury: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Leeds Old Road before work, or in the car park at Swain Green Tavern on the way home.
Then, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old car — because a hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
Third, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in just as easily, and once the pour starts, nothing halts it. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Thornbury or out in Bradford Moor.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Moorside or a forecourt in Thornbury, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside your fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of vehicles. Look for it.
- Can't find it next to your diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or inside the boot — the owner's manual says which.
- The previous driver knows. Ask as you pick up a hire car or company car — from New Pudsey's car park, say — rather than once the light appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around West Yorkshire that is.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time in hand — not rushing on the side of Randolph Street.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, 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 vehicle on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Don't go on to step five.
Thornbury: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Short order, then. First: the motor stays unstarted. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — so leave it off. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
Ask the staff to help push your car clear of the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Morrisons, the another forecourt nearby or somewhere else. At home around Thornbury? So the vehicle remains where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. Thornbury lies under 3 miles from the M606; on it, use the next junction. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Bradford, under 3 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Thornbury.
When we arrive in Thornbury, what occurs?
Outside Thornbury Primary Leadership Academy, near Bradford Tribunal Hearing Centre or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, since those replies decide the work and the price. That price comes on the call, before any van leaves.
The fuel system is then purged thoroughly, after your tank is cleared. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more here than with petrol. The filter cleaned or, where needed, swapped; clean diesel in; then a check of the car. Before leaving, our engineers start it and make sure that it is running properly.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor has not run need about half an hour once we are there. Your insurer usually wants an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. While we travel, take a look at your insurance documents; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Thornbury, briefly
Thornbury is a suburban area in West Yorkshire, situated near the city of Bradford and characterised by its riverside setting. Thornbury has a mix of terraced housing and is located at an elevation of 178 metres, with nearby places including Bradford Moor, Fagley, and Laisterdyke. Thornbury is close to the centre of Bradford, being only 1.9 miles away, and has a population of approximately 10,027 residents.
AdBlue drains across West Yorkshire, Thornbury included
Being a residential suburb, Thornbury has the same vans as nearby places — Fagley, Laisterdyke — right across BD postcodes and the wider area around them. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting BD3 7.
The car doesn't need to move. Wherever it sits — near Thornbury Centre, in a layby heading to Bradford Moor Park, on a drive — that's where it is emptied. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of St Margaret, ring and ask rather than guessing.
For Thornbury motorists, the short version
Pour nothing till you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere in West Yorkshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — so leave the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103.