How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in West End
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. Around West End, catching it before your motor runs normally leaves a drain and a thorough flush on the spot. The remainder of this page covers why it takes place and how to ensure it does not — handy if you're reading ahead of time.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Not one fluid but two: that is what plenty of modern diesels near West End and Bainton run, with diesel feeding your engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
There is a filler on every tank. Plenty of cars share a single flap for the two, while others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Filling the diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. Rarely filled, AdBlue usually goes in out of a bottle, tipped by a driver who has to stop and think which cap it needs. That gap is where the slip lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place around West End?
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from your car, and letting it run out means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Chapel Lane, perhaps outside Robin Hood on the way home that evening.
Next, the hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old motor — because a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
A spout-topped bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, after begun, keeps on. Middleton-on-the-Wolds or the heart of West End: it takes the same few seconds either way.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Holme on the Wolds or a forecourt in West End, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally don't.
- Many motors give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- Can't see it beside your diesel inlet? Then check below the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Hutton Cranswick? Ask the person who drove the car last before leaving, not once the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
When the light goes on, wherever in East Riding of Yorkshire, follow this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Front Street.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, perhaps, but it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Never go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around West End?
Brief list, then. Top of it: your engine stays off. Keep your ignition off as well, because on plenty of diesels it by itself starts your fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help roll your car clear of the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Kirkburn Filling Station, the another forecourt nearby or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around West End.
Where the engine has run already, stop somewhere safe then switch the car off. On the Petuaria Way, under 15 miles from West End, that means the next junction. Distance counts — a quick hop across West End makes a smaller job than heading under 25 miles to Kingston upon Hull — so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival in West End, and what occurs next
Our van comes to the vehicle wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, near Middleton on the Wolds Village Hall, or outside Middleton-on-the-Wolds Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School. Those answers determine the work and our price, and so we ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it has run. During the phone call itself, you hear the price — before dispatch.
The fuel system is then purged thoroughly, once the tank is emptied. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and none of it washes out unaided. That is why it counts more. Filter cleaned or, where needed, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a check of your car. Before we go, our engineers start the car and confirm that it is running correctly.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after our engineers get there, provided the engine hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About West End and where it is
West End is a small suburban area in the East Riding of Yorkshire, situated inland at an elevation of 41 metres. West End lies approximately 16 miles west of Kingston upon Hull, near the villages of Middleton-on-the-Wolds and North Dalton. West End has a population of around 847 people, predominantly living in detached houses. West End is also close to the village of Lund, in a rural part of the county.
AdBlue drains around West End, and East Riding of Yorkshire beyond
West End is a residential suburb, and our vans that cover it also work the places near it, North Dalton and Lund among them, across the YO postcode area. Give a postcode beginning YO25 9, and the van gets there quickest.
There's no need to shift the car. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street close to Saint Andrew's Church, a lay-by on the way to Middleton on the Wolds Recreation Ground, a drive. Assuming doesn't help at the back of Lund Village Hall, close to a border, or anywhere hard to describe; ring and ask.
For West End drivers, the short version
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere in East Riding of Yorkshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless — and so leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.