Whitecote: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave the motor and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Normally, when your motor has not turned, it is drained and thoroughly cleaned where the vehicle is in Whitecote. Here before the event? Then what follows covers how it comes about and what to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Many current diesels on the roads around Whitecote and Sandford carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust stream and cleans it.
Separate tanks, different fillers. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Topping up your diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. Far less often, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
Whitecote: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
It's rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Hurry comes from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a driveway off Airedale Cliff, or on the way home in the car park at The Acorn.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as readily, and after the tip starts, no part halts it. Moorside or the middle of Whitecote: 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 Hawksworth or a forecourt around Whitecote, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually are not.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Lift the flap and look for a label — many motors show which goes in which inlet just there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler is if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask when you collect a hire car or fleet car — at Kirkstall Forge's car park, perhaps — not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
When the light goes on, wherever across West Yorkshire, follow this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Pollard Lane.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at the second or third step that the bottle went in the diesel filler? That is where you stop. Never carry on to step five.
Whitecote: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting the engine. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the vehicle on. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of that tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help push the car clear of the petrol pump if you're at a forecourt — the Shell, the Esso or anywhere else. If you're on your own driveway around Whitecote, leave the vehicle where it sits.
Where your engine has been run by now, pull over safely and switch the vehicle off. On the Inner Ring Road, under 5 miles from Whitecote, that means the next exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Leeds, under 5 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Whitecote.
Whitecote: what happens when our technicians turn up
Outside Whitecote Primary School, close to Horsforth Tennis Club or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, we come to it. We ask what got in, about how much, and whether it has run, since the answers settle this work and our quote. On the phone call itself, you hear our quote — before anything else.
Draining your tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the system. With AdBlue that matters 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. After your filter has been cleaned — or replaced, where needed — fresh diesel goes in, and finally the car is tested. We do not leave until it has been started and is running correctly.
Unrun vehicles mostly mean a half-hour visit after arrival. The equipment is safe on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a driveway late at night. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once the job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Whitecote itself
Whitecote is a locality situated on the riverside in West Yorkshire, with a mix of semi-detached housing and a population of around 603 residents. Whitecote lies close to the city of Leeds, approximately 3.6 miles away, and is near other local places such as Moorside and Newlay. Whitecote's elevation is around 55 metres above sea level, placing it in a relatively low-lying area. Whitecote is part of the wider Leeds urban area, with easy access to the city's amenities.
AdBlue drains around Whitecote, and West Yorkshire beyond
Newlay and Cragg Hill are among the places near Whitecote, a small village, that the same teams cover, over LS postcodes. Give a postcode beginning LS5 3, and our van gets there quickest.
There's no need to move the vehicle. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, a lay-by on the way to Bramley Fall, a driveway. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of St Mary the Blessed Virgin, ring and ask rather than assuming.
The short version for Whitecote drivers
Pour nothing until you've read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Keep it off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, across West Yorkshire.