How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Wapping
Keep your engine and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain and a thorough flush, done just where the car stands around Wapping, is normally what it takes when found before the engine runs. The remainder of this page covers why it happens and how to make sure it does not — handy if you are reading before it has happened.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Plenty of newer diesels around Long Ing, as well as Wapping, run on two liquids; your motor takes only your diesel. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has a filler of its own. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on many cars. On others, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in your boot instead. At the pump, your diesel side gets filled constantly. The AdBlue side is filled far less frequently, normally from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the slip lives.
Wapping: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a driveway off Westgate before work, or in the car park at The Barlick on the way home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low your car warns you, and once it's empty, limp mode follows.
The old car's filler is where the hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new motor or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That is a second thing: a new vehicle.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip after it has started. It takes seconds, whether out in Town Head or bang in the heart of Wapping.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A couple of seconds is all these take — so check them before you pour anything, on a drive in Coates or a forecourt around Wapping.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally don't.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the filler flap and look for a label — many vehicles mark what belongs in which inlet just there.
- The handbook says where it lives if the filler is not next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver will know. Ask when you collect a hire car or company car — at Colne's car park, perhaps — rather than when the warning appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
When the light comes on, wherever in Lancashire, use this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Malham View Close.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, yes, but it does the trick.
- Both under a single flap? Then make sure the cap on the diesel filler is still closed before raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop right there. Stage five is out.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Wapping?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your motor. The fuel pump runs on many diesels the moment your ignition goes on — and so leave it off. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of your tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it is the Shell or the Texaco, ask the attendants to help push your car away from the petrol pump. Your own drive in Wapping is where it should stay.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the motor has already run. The next junction means the place to leave when you are on the M65, under 5 miles from Wapping. A short hop across Wapping is a smaller job than a run towards Bradford, under 25 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we turn up around Wapping, what happens?
Anywhere your car has stopped, whether outside Gisburn Road Community Primary School, beside Independent Methodist Church or at home, the van comes to it. Which fluid went in, the amount, and whether it ran: our technicians ask since those replies set both work and quote. You hear that quote by phone, before anyone sets off.
The fuel system is then rinsed thoroughly, once the tank is emptied. With AdBlue that counts 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 filter flushed or, if it must be, swapped; fresh diesel in; then a check of the vehicle. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
With pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the engine has not run take roughly half an hour after we are there. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Wapping
Wapping is a suburban area in Lancashire, situated on the riverside with a mix of terraced housing and other residential properties. Wapping sits at an elevation of 179 metres, overlooking the surrounding landscape. Wapping is located near several nearby places, including Town Head, Barnoldswick, and Croft, and is approximately 19.8 miles from the city of Bradford. Wapping has a population of around 4642 people, living in a variety of homes, predominantly terraced in style.
AdBlue drains around Wapping, and Lancashire beyond
Barnoldswick and Croft are among the towns around Wapping, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, throughout BB postcodes. Quickest of all: give a BB18 5 postcode to our van.
Your car does not need to shift. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Clough Park, a side street near West Craven Baptist Church: our engineers drain it where it is. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Bancroft Mill, ring and ask rather than guessing.
The short version for Wapping motorists
Pour nothing until you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere around Lancashire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway — and so leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.