Upper Denby: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Keep the motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Usually, if your engine hasn't run, it's emptied and fully cleaned where the car sits around Upper Denby. Here before the event? In that case the rest covers why it comes about and how to stop it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Many newer diesels on the roads round Upper Denby and High Flatts carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to fresh them, from a separate tank.
There's a filler on every tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on many vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up your diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. Far less often, the AdBlue side gets filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. It is in that gap that the error happens.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank happen in Upper Denby?
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Denby Lane before work, or in the car park outside The George on the way home.
Then the vehicle is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, once started, keeps on. It's seconds, whether out in Lower Denby or right in the centre of Upper Denby.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Nether End or a forecourt around Upper Denby, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally do not.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on many cars. Look for it.
- The handbook shows which it is when your filler is not next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Denby Dale? Check with whoever drove the car last before you set off, rather than when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
On the day the warning appears — wherever it is across West Yorkshire — a simple routine to follow.
- Switch off after you park — level ground, engine off, and not in a rush by Gunthwaite Lane on the verge.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. When both share a flap, make sure it's shut before the bottle comes up.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Before you start the car, shut the cap and check a second time that the diesel cap never opened off.
Find at step two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? So stop right there. Stage five is out.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Upper Denby already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the engine. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the car on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it's the Yorkshire Fuels or the The co-operative, ask the staff to help push the car clear of the petrol pump. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Upper Denby.
Where the engine has run by now, pull over somewhere safe and switch it off. The next junction is the place to leave if you are on the M1, under 5 miles from Upper Denby. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Wakefield, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Upper Denby.
Upper Denby: what occurs when our engineers turn up
By Denby Church of England Voluntary Aided First School, close to Saint John's Church or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, we come to it. What fluid got in, the quantity, and if it ran: we ask because the answers decide both work and quote. You hear that quote by phone, before anybody sets off.
Then your tank is cleared and the fuel system purged thoroughly. More than with petrol, it counts here: the crystals form, certain metals are attacked, and none of it washes out on its own, however long it is left. The filter flushed or, if needed, replaced; fresh diesel in; and then a test of the car. The engine is started next and tested to make sure it runs properly, all before our engineers go.
Unstarted vehicles mostly need a half-hour job after the moment we arrive. The equipment is safe on a live filling station, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. While we travel, take a look at your policy; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Upper Denby and where it is
Upper Denby is a village in West Yorkshire, situated near the River Dearne and characterised by its detached housing stock. Upper Denby sits at an elevation of around 250 metres, overlooking the surrounding countryside and the nearby villages of Lower Denby and Denby Dale. Upper Denby is located approximately 10.7 miles from Wakefield and is home to a population of around 668 residents. Upper Denby benefits from its rural setting, with Ingbirchworth also nearby.
AdBlue drains across West Yorkshire, Upper Denby included
Over HD postcodes, our teams that cover Upper Denby — a village — work the surrounding places too, Ingbirchworth and Denby Dale included. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting HD8 8.
Shifting the car is not needed. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Swift Wood, a side street near Zion Chapel: our engineers drain the car where it stands. Guessing won't help behind Holy Trinity, close to a border, or anywhere hard to describe; phone and ask.
For Upper Denby drivers, the short version
Pour nothing till you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere across West Yorkshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — so leave the car off then call 0333 366 0103.