AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Thurnby Lodge: How It Happens and How to Avoid It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and the ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, carried out just where the car stands in Thurnby Lodge, is normally all it takes when caught before the engine runs. Here before the event? Then what follows explains how it happens and what to prevent it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads around Thurnby Lodge and Humberstone Garden carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. The exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to fresh it, from a separate tank.
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 each filling station call-out, again and again. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
Thurnby Lodge: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Cross Keys Green before work, or in the car park at The Manor on the way home.
Next, the hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old motor — since a hire car, a new car or a company car places the fillers where your last one did not.
No part halts the tip once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's seconds, be it out in Scraptoft or bang in the centre of Thurnby Lodge.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Be it a Thurnby Lodge forecourt or a drive over in Bushby, spend a couple of seconds over these before any is poured in.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually don't.
- On plenty of vehicles, size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Leicester.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Leicestershire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Bowhill Grove, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off first.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — once you've located your filler and read it.
- The two under one flap? So confirm the lid on your diesel filler is still closed before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Before you start the vehicle, close the cap and look again that your diesel cap never came off.
Find at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? Then stop right there. Stage five stays out.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Thurnby Lodge already?
The short order of things, beginning with no starting the motor. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the car on. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, since AdBlue settles to the bottom rather than mixing — and that's where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help roll the vehicle away from the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the Tesco, the Shell or anywhere else. Your own driveway in Thurnby Lodge is the place it should stay.
Already run? Pull over when it's safe, then switch off. Thurnby Lodge lies under 10 miles from the M1; there, take the next junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Leicester, under 5 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Thurnby Lodge.
Thurnby Lodge: what occurs when we turn up
Wherever the vehicle came to rest, be it outside Willowbrook Mead Primary Academy, near The Peace Centre or on your own drive, our van comes to it. Both the work and the price rest on three replies — what fluid, what amount, and if it has run — so our technicians ask. You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off.
Emptying the tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the fuel system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more here than with petrol. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
Unstarted cars usually need a half-hour visit from arrival. The equipment is safe on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a driveway late at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It's worth looking at your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Thurnby Lodge
Thurnby Lodge is a suburban area located on the outskirts of Leicester, situated near the riverside and approximately 3.4 miles from the city centre. Thurnby Lodge sits at an elevation of around 101 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation in the area. Thurnby Lodge is close to nearby places such as Scraptoft, Thurnby, and Nether Hall, and is part of the larger Leicester urban area.
AdBlue drains in Thurnby Lodge and across Leicestershire
Being a residential suburb, Thurnby Lodge has the same vans as nearby areas — Thurnby, Nether Hall — right through LE postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Fastest of all: quote a LE5 2 postcode for the van.
Your car does not need to move. Anywhere it sits — near Thurnby Lodge Library, on a lay-by heading to Willowbrook Park, on a drive — that's where it gets drained. Tricky to explain, like the back of Christ Church? Close to a county line? Asking beats guessing, and so ring.
The short version for Thurnby Lodge people
Tip no AdBlue till you've read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Leave the car switched off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Leicestershire.