Whetstone: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and the ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. Usually, when the motor has not turned, it's emptied and thoroughly purged where your car sits in Whetstone. The remainder of this page covers why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't — handy if you are reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel goes to the motor — yet plenty of modern diesels seen round Whetstone and Cosby hold a second fluid as well. Its own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, where a spray treats the gas.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of motors have a single flap for both, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at every forecourt call-out, again and again. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less commonly. It's in the gap that the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens around Whetstone
Carelessness rarely causes it. Instead is three things lining up together.
Haste comes from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off Wale Road, or on the way home in the car park outside The Bull's Head.
Unfamiliar vehicles are next, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company motors put their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
No part stops the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It takes seconds, whether in Blaby or right in the heart of Whetstone.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt around Whetstone or a driveway over in Glen Parva. Seconds, no more.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually don't.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Check for it.
- The handbook says which it is when the filler is not next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Narborough, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Leicestershire that is.
- Switch off after you park — level ground, engine off, and not in a rush beside Cemetery Road on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" out loud while unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Discover at the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Skip stage five altogether.
Whetstone: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The short order of things, starting with no starting the motor. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the vehicle on. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of the tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help roll the car clear of the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Texaco, the another forecourt nearby or anywhere else. If you're on your own drive in Whetstone, leave the vehicle where it sits.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. The next junction is where to come off if you are on the M1, under a mile from Whetstone. A short hop across Whetstone is a smaller job than a run towards Leicester, under 5 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
When our engineers turn up around Whetstone, what happens?
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside St Peter's Church of England Primary School Whetstone, near Whetstone United Reform Church or on your own drive. Both the work and our quote depend on three replies — what fluid, what quantity, and if it's run — so our technicians ask. On the phone call itself, you are told the price — before anything else.
The system is then rinsed thoroughly, after the tank is drained. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. The engine is fired up next and checked to be sure it runs correctly, all before we leave.
Unrun cars usually mean a half-hour job after the moment we arrive. The equipment is safe on a live forecourt, and hushed enough for a driveway late at night. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. It's worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Whetstone, briefly
Whetstone is a village in Leicestershire, situated on the banks of the River Soar, with an elevation of around 71 metres. Whetstone lies close to the city of Leicester, approximately 4.7 miles to the south, and is near other villages such as Blaby and Narborough. Whetstone has a population of around 2357 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Whetstone is located in the East Midlands region, about 86 miles north of London.
AdBlue drains round Whetstone, and Leicestershire beyond
Littlethorpe and Narborough are among the towns near Whetstone, a village, that the same vans cover, throughout LE postcodes. Fastest of all: quote a LE8 6 postcode for our van.
Shifting your car isn't necessary. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Whetstone Memorial Hall, a lay-by on the way to Leicester Lions, a drive. Tricky to pin down, like the back of St Peters Church Hall? By a county line? Checking is better than assuming, so phone.
Whetstone people: the short version
First, the cap; after that, the tip. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere around Leicestershire.