How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Waingroves
Stop here a minute when the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Waingroves. Nothing happened yet? Below, the page covers the reasons it takes place and the how to prevent it for good.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Plenty of current diesels on the roads about Waingroves and Cross Hill carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream and cleans it.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on many cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Diesel gets filled on every forecourt call-out, week in, week out. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less regularly. That gap is where the error lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur in Waingroves?
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a drive off Waingroves Road before work, or in the car park outside Thorn Tree Inn on the way home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car tells you, and once it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
Then, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old motor — since a hire car, a new motor or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, once started, keeps on. Peasehill or the heart of Waingroves: it is the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Waingroves forecourt or a drive out in Greenhillocks, spend a few seconds over these before any is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually is not. Read it instead of going by position.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows which it is when the filler is not next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check when you collect a hire car or fleet car — from Langley Mill's car park, perhaps — not when the warning comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — wherever you are across Derbyshire — a simple routine to follow.
- Pull in somewhere level, engine off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of Jessop Street.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, but it works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Skip step five altogether.
Waingroves: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Brief list, then. Top of it: the engine remains unstarted. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch it on. Topping up with diesel will not weaken it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of your tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it is the Sainsbury's or the The Co-operative, ask the staff to help roll your car away from the pump. Your own drive in Waingroves is the place it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. Come off the M1 — under 5 miles out of Waingroves — at the next exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Derby, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Waingroves.
Waingroves: what occurs when our technicians arrive
We come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Waingroves Primary School, near Waingroves Methodist Church or on your own drive. The replies settle the work and our quote, so our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has run. You get that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the entire system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. A test comes at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and your filter is flushed or replaced as needed. Then we fire it up and confirm it runs properly before we leave.
If your engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. The insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once the job is done. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. While we travel, take a look at your insurance documents; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Waingroves, briefly
Waingroves is a suburban area in Derbyshire, situated approximately 8.8 miles north of Derby, and is characterized by its semi-detached housing stock. Waingroves sits inland, at an elevation of around 139 metres, and is located near the communities of Peasehill, Codnor, and Codnor Gate. Waingroves has a population of around 3541 residents, and is positioned about 118.5 miles northwest of London.
AdBlue drains around Waingroves and across Derbyshire
Being a residential suburb, Waingroves has the same vans as surrounding areas — Codnor, Codnor Gate — right across DE postcodes and the wider area around them. A postcode starting DE5 9 gets the van to you fastest.
The car remains where it is. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Waingroves Community Woodland & Strelley Wood, a side street close to Codnor Methodist Church: we drain it where it sits. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Saint James.
Waingroves drivers: the short version
Always, the cap; then, the tip. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it stands, anywhere across Derbyshire: keep it off then call 0333 366 0103.