AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in West End: How It Occurs and How to Prevent It
Leave the engine and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain plus a full flush, carried out right where your car sits around West End, is usually what it takes if caught before your motor runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of newer diesels around Nether End, like those in West End, carry on two fluids; your motor gets just the diesel. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the fumes to fresh them, from a separate tank.
There's a filler for each tank. Plenty of motors have a single flap for the two, while some move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally goes in out of a bottle, tipped by someone who has to stop and think what filler it needs. It is in that gap that the error happens.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens around West End
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Wheatlands Lane before work, or in the car park outside Prince Of Wales on the way home.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing stops the tip once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of West End or out in Baslow.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Be it a West End forecourt or a drive out in Bubnell, spend a couple of seconds over these before anything goes in.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — many vehicles mark which goes in each filler just there.
- Can't see it next to your diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or inside the boot — the handbook will say which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Grindleford.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
Anywhere around Derbyshire the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Bakewell Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. When the two sit under a flap, make sure it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, and look once more — confirm your diesel cap stayed shut the whole time. Only then, start your car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Skip stage five entirely.
West End: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Short order, then. First: the engine stays unstarted. The fuel pump runs on many diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — so keep it off. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help roll the car away from the pump if you are at a forecourt — the BP, the The Co-operative or somewhere else. On your own drive in West End? So the car stays where it is.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. West End sits under 15 miles from the M1; there, use the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across West End is less a job than a run of under 15 miles to Sheffield, and so tell us.
Our arrival in West End, and what takes place next
Anywhere the vehicle came to rest, be it outside St Anne's CofE Primary School, beside St Anne's Church or at home, the van comes to it. The answers determine the work and the quote, so we ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it has run. You hear that quote on the phone, before anyone sets off.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the entire system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. Filter flushed or, if needed, swapped; clean diesel in; then a test of the car. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running properly.
If your motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About West End
West End is a small suburban area in Derbyshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 121 metres. West End lies near the villages of Baslow and Bridge End, and is close to the Peak District National Park. West End has a population of around 830 people, predominantly living in detached houses. West End is located 11.4 miles from Sheffield, making it a commuter base for the city.
AdBlue drains about West End, and Derbyshire beyond
Throughout DE postcodes, our vans covering West End — a residential suburb — work the nearby places too, Over End and Bridge End included. A postcode starting DE45 1 gets the van to you fastest.
The vehicle remains where it is. Wherever it stands — near Baslow Village Hall, in a layby en route to Hare Park, at home — that is where it gets drained. Assuming won't help behind Sir Joseph Paxton, close to a border, or somewhere hard to pin down; phone and check.
For West End people, the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere across Derbyshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — and so leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103.