How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Treeton
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then put this page down a moment, keep your ignition and engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, done just where your vehicle stands around Treeton, is normally what it takes if caught before the engine runs. Here before the event? In that case what follows covers why it happens and how to stop it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Diesel feeds the engine — yet plenty of current diesels driven about Treeton and Guilthwaite hold another fluid too. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Different tanks, different fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on many cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think what filler to use. That gap is where the slip lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Treeton: how it happens
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things lining up at once.
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 Front Street before work, or in the car park at The Canary Micro Bar on the way home.
New-to-you vehicles are second, too. Rentals, new vehicles and company cars put their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, once started, keeps on. Catcliffe or the middle of Treeton: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Woodhouse Mill or a forecourt in Treeton, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Read the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally are not.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of vehicles have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Woodhouse? Ask whoever drove the vehicle last before leaving, not when the light goes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around South Yorkshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Station Road, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park and switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, yes, yet it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then check again — making sure the diesel filler remained shut the whole time. After that, start your car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Never go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Treeton?
Do not start your motor: that's where the short order of things begins. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel will not dilute it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of that tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
At a forecourt — Welcome Break Fuel & Forecourt, Morrisons or another — the staff will normally help roll the vehicle away, if you ask. Your own driveway in Treeton is where it should stay.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. Treeton sits under a mile from the M1; on it, use the first junction. Distance counts — a short hop across Treeton makes a smaller job than heading under 5 miles to Sheffield — so tell us about how far it went.
When our engineers get there around Treeton, what occurs?
Wherever your car has stopped, whether outside Treeton Church of England Primary School, beside Treeton Youth Centre or on your own drive, our van comes to it. We ask what got in, about how much, and if it has run, because those answers decide this work and our price. On the phone call itself, you hear our price — before anything else.
Emptying that tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the fuel system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after our technicians arrive, as long as the engine hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark outside 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. While we travel, have a look at your insurance documents; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Treeton itself
Treeton is a village situated on the banks of the River Rother in South Yorkshire, with a mix of semi-detached housing and other residential properties. Treeton lies close to the city of Sheffield, approximately 4.8 miles to the south, and is near other local places such as Catcliffe and Orgreave. Treeton has a population of around 2375 people and is located at an elevation of about 60 metres above sea level. Treeton is also relatively distant from London, at around 139.6 miles away.
Treeton and South Yorkshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Treeton is a village, and the teams that cover it also work the places near it, Waverley and Orgreave among them, across the S postcode area. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting S60 5.
Shifting your car isn't necessary. Anywhere it stands — beside Treeton Baptist Church, on a lay-by heading to Catcliffe Flash LNR, at home — that is where it gets emptied. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Treeton Reading Room.
For Treeton motorists, the short version
Always, the cap; after that, the tip. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, wherever across South Yorkshire: keep the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103.