Wakefield: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and your ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Wakefield. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds the motor — but many modern diesels driven round Wakefield and New Brighton carry another fluid too. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust stream and cleans it.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on a lot of cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
Wakefield: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Northgate before work, or in the car park outside Jock's Cavern on the way home.
Unfamiliar vehicles come second, as well. Hire cars, new cars and company motors put their fillers in new places, and the hand reaches for the cap used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the pour after it has started. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Wakefield or out in Primrose Hill.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Clayton Hill or a forecourt around Wakefield, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on many motors. Check for it.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler is if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Wakefield Westgate, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
When the light comes on, anywhere across West Yorkshire, use this routine.
- Not in a rush on the side of Bull Ring, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park then switch off properly.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It works.
- Both behind a single flap? Then confirm the lid on the diesel side is still shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the vehicle, close the cap and look again that the diesel cap was never opened off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Skip stage five altogether.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Wakefield already?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting your motor. Leave the ignition off too, since on plenty of diesels switching it on alone runs your fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
On a forecourt — Sainsbury's, JET or another — the attendants will usually help roll your car away, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Wakefield.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next junction means the place to come off when you're on the M1, under 3 miles from Wakefield. A short hop across Wakefield is a smaller job than a run towards Leeds, under 10 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival in Wakefield, and what occurs next
By St Austin's Catholic Primary School, near Wakefield Cathedral or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our engineers come to it. Which fluid got in, the quantity, and if it ran: we ask because the answers set both work and price. You get that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out.
Then your tank is cleared and the fuel system cleaned thoroughly. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. Testing comes at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the filter is cleaned or replaced if necessary. Then our engineers fire it up and make sure it runs smoothly before we go.
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 technicians use are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. While we travel, have a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Wakefield itself
Wakefield is a city located in West Yorkshire, England, situated on the River Calder at an elevation of 51 metres. Wakefield sits near the M1 and M62 motorways, approximately 8 miles southeast of Leeds, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Primrose Hill and St Johns. Wakefield has a population of around 73,000 people and predominantly consists of semi-detached housing. Wakefield is also relatively close to other areas like Brooks Bank, which is part of the city's wider urban landscape.
Wakefield and West Yorkshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout WF postcodes, the teams covering Wakefield — a cathedral city — work the nearby spots too, Brooks Bank and St Johns included. A postcode starting WF1 3 gets the van to you fastest.
The car doesn't need to move. The drain takes place right there, be it a drive, a road by Trinity Walk Sculptural Column, or a lay-by towards Coronation Gardens. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Marks & Spencer.
The short version for Wakefield motorists
Pour nothing till you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around West Yorkshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — and so leave it off then call 0333 366 0103.