How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Weelsby
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and your ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Weelsby. Reading in advance? Then the rest explains why it comes about and how to prevent it ever happening.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Many modern diesels on the roads about Weelsby and Grant Thorold carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Other vehicles put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place the two side by side behind one flap. The diesel side is fuelled at the petrol pump all the time. Seldom topped up, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think what cap to use. That gap is where the slip lives.
Weelsby: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
It's rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the car, and running out means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Whitby Drive, or at The Honest on the way home that evening.
The old car's filler is where the hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is a second thing: a new motor.
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 pour after it has started. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Weelsby or out in Old Clee.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Grimsby or a forecourt around Weelsby.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally isn't. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- On many vehicles, the size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of cars say there which fuel goes where.
- Cannot find it next to your diesel inlet? Then look below the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook says which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Grimsby Town.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
On the day the light appears — wherever you are around Lincolnshire — a simple routine to use.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — never rushing on the side of Ladysmith Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, but it does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two share a flap, make sure it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then check again — making sure your diesel filler remained closed the whole time. After that, start your car.
Spot at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? So stop right there. Step five is off limits.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Weelsby?
The short order of things, starting with not starting your engine. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
At a forecourt — Asda, Esso or another — the attendants will normally help roll the car clear, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Weelsby.
Already run? Stop once it is sensible, then switch off. The next exit means where to come off if you're on the M180, under 15 miles from Weelsby. A short hop across Weelsby is a smaller job than a run towards Kingston upon Hull, under 25 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
What takes place when our engineers turn up in Weelsby
By Old Clee Primary Academy, close to The Fusion Centre or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, we come to it. What fluid went in, the amount, and if it ran: our technicians ask because the replies set both work and price. During the phone call itself, you are told the price — before anything else.
The system is then cleaned thoroughly, once the tank is drained. Much more than with petrol, it matters here: the crystals build up, some metals are attacked, and none of it clears out on its own, however long it sits. Filter cleaned or, where it must be, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a test of your car. Your engine is fired up next and checked to make sure it runs correctly, all before we leave.
With pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor hasn't run take about half an hour after our technicians are there. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents your insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, take a look at your policy; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Weelsby
Weelsby is a coastal suburban area in northern Lincolnshire, situated near the towns of Old Clee and Cleethorpes. Weelsby lies close to the Lincolnshire coast, at a low elevation of around 6 metres, and is characterized by its predominantly terraced housing. Weelsby is part of the larger Grimsby urban area, but remains a distinct community with its own local amenities.
AdBlue drains round Weelsby, and Lincolnshire beyond
Weelsby is a residential suburb, and our teams that cover it also work the places near it, Holme Hill and Wellow among them, across the DN postcode area. Give a postcode beginning DN32 9, and the van gets there quickest.
The vehicle remains put. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Clee Fields, a side street close to King George V stadium: our engineers drain it where it sits. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Holy Trinity and St Mary the Virgin, ring and ask rather than guessing.
In short, for Weelsby people
Before you tip, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around Lincolnshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — and so leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.