AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Whirlow Brook: Why It Happens and How to Stop It
Pause here a minute when the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then call 0333 366 0103. Usually, if your motor has not run, it's drained and fully flushed where your car sits in Whirlow Brook. Here before the event? Then what follows covers how it happens and how to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Not one fluid but two: that is how many modern diesels near Whirlow Brook and Dore carry, with diesel feeding your motor. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the gas to fresh them, from a separate tank.
There is a filler for every tank. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in on each filling station call-out, again and again. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. That gap is where the slip lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Whirlow Brook: how it happens
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
On a drive off Whirlowdale Close before work, or in the car park outside Rising Sun heading home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and once it's gone, limp mode follows.
Unfamiliar cars come second, as well. Hire cars, new cars and company motors put their fillers in new places, and the hand reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the pour after it has started. Whirlow or the middle of Whirlow Brook: it is the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Brick Houses or a forecourt around Whirlow Brook, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally do not.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Look for it.
- Can't see it beside your diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook will say which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Dore & Totley, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — anywhere you are around South Yorkshire — a simple routine to use.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of Whirlow Green.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you've located the filler and read it.
- The two under one flap? So make sure the cap on your diesel side stays closed ahead of raising the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the car, close the cap and check again that the diesel cap never opened off.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Stage five stays out.
Whirlow Brook: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting the engine. Leave your ignition off too, since on many diesels it alone runs the pump. Topping up with diesel will not weaken it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of the tank, right where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help push your car clear of the petrol pump if you're on a forecourt — the Tesco, the Sainsbury's or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive around Whirlow Brook.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. Whirlow Brook sits under 10 miles from the M1; there, use the first exit. A short hop across Whirlow Brook is a smaller job than a run towards Sheffield, under 5 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
When our engineers turn up around Whirlow Brook, what happens?
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Dobcroft Junior School, near Whirlow Wheel or on your own drive. Which liquid was put in, the amount, and if it ran: our engineers ask since the answers decide both work and price. During the phone call itself, you hear the quote — before anything else.
Emptying your tank comes next, then a full flush of the fuel system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. We don't leave until it has been started and is running properly.
Unstarted cars mostly mean a half-hour visit after the moment we arrive. The equipment is fine on a busy filling station, and quiet enough for a driveway after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Whirlow Brook and where it is
Whirlow Brook is a locality situated on the banks of a river in South Yorkshire, with Whirlow Brook being close to the city of Sheffield. Whirlow Brook has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly characterised by detached homes. Whirlow Brook is near other local places such as Whirlow and Little Common, and is located at an elevation of around 182 metres.
AdBlue drains across South Yorkshire, Whirlow Brook included
Whirlow Brook is a small village, and the teams that cover it also work the towns around it, Little Common and Abbeydale among them, across the S postcode area. Quote a postcode beginning S11 9, and the van gets there fastest.
No need to shift the car. Wherever it stands — beside Whirlow Spirituality Centre at the Chapel of the Holy Spirit, on a lay-by heading to Ryecroft Glen, at home — that's where it is emptied. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Ryecroft Mill.
For Whirlow Brook people, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it wherever it stands, wherever across South Yorkshire: keep it off and phone 0333 366 0103.