How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Washpit
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then put this page aside for now, leave your ignition and motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Usually, if your engine hasn't turned, it is emptied and thoroughly cleaned where the car sits around Washpit. Reading in advance? In that case the rest explains why it comes about and how to stop it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Diesel feeds your engine — yet many modern diesels seen round Washpit and Gully hold a second liquid too. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, and there spraying treats the gas.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the arrangement on a lot of cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Diesel goes in at each filling station call-out, week in, week out. The AdBlue side is filled far less often, normally from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in the gap that the error happens.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Washpit: how it occurs
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the car, and running dry leads to limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Lamma Well Road, perhaps outside The Boshaw Trout on the way home after work.
Then the vehicle is new. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Third, the bottle goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in just as readily, and once the tip begins, no part stops it. Whether it takes place in Arrunden or the middle of Washpit, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in New Gate or a forecourt around Washpit, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally do not.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on many vehicles. Check for it.
- Can't see it beside your diesel filler? In that case check beneath the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook says which.
- The previous driver knows. Ask when you collect a hire car or company car — from Brockholes's car park, perhaps — rather than once the light appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in West Yorkshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Choppards Lane, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave it on.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the car, close the cap and look again that the diesel cap never came off.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop just there. Don't go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Washpit already?
Short list, then. First: your engine remains off. The fuel pump starts on many diesels as soon as the ignition is switched on — so keep it off. Filling up with diesel will not dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of the tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — Murco, Texaco or another — the attendants will usually help push the vehicle away, if you ask. If you are on your own driveway in Washpit, leave the vehicle where it sits.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. Leave the M62 — under 10 miles out of Washpit — at the next junction. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Wakefield, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Washpit.
Washpit: what happens when our engineers get there
By Holmfirth Junior Infant and Nursery School, near Choppards Mission Room or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Both the work and our quote depend on three answers — which fluid, what quantity, and if it's run — so we ask. Nobody heads out before you have had the quote over the phone.
Then your tank is emptied and the fuel system purged thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes out unaided. Hence it matters more. A test comes at the end: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and your filter is cleaned or changed if necessary. Before leaving, our engineers start the car and confirm that it is running smoothly.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where your motor hasn't run take roughly half an hour once our engineers arrive. Nothing upfront; you settle up that day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. It is worth looking at your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Washpit
Washpit is a small hamlet situated on the riverside in West Yorkshire, with a elevation of 234 metres. Washpit lies near several other small settlements, including Arrunden, Cartworth, and Under Bank, and is approximately 14.7 miles from Wakefield. Washpit is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Washpit is also relatively distant from London, at around 157.9 miles away.
Washpit and West Yorkshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Washpit is a rural hamlet, and our vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Cartworth and Under Bank among them, across the HD postcode area. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting HD9 2.
There's no need to move the vehicle. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Arrunden Wood, a side street near Underbank RUFC: our technicians drain the car where it is. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Longley Farm.
For Washpit people, the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave the vehicle switched off and phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across West Yorkshire.