How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Woodnook
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and the ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, done right where the vehicle sits around Woodnook, is usually all it needs when found before your motor runs. Not happened yet? Below, the page explains the reasons it occurs and the ways to prevent it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to your engine — yet many current diesels seen around Woodnook and Loundsley Green carry a second liquid too. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Some vehicles put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more place the two together under one flap. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. The AdBlue side is filled far less frequently, usually from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
Woodnook: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things coming up together.
Haste follows from the warning. The vehicle tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off Capthorne Close, or on the way home in the car park at Holme Hall Inn.
The old car's cap is where the hand goes — but a hire car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is the second thing: a new car.
Nothing stops the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's a few seconds, whether out in Ashgate or right in the heart of Woodnook.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these first, on a forecourt around Woodnook or a driveway out in Hemming Green. Seconds, no more.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it lives if the filler is not next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Chesterfield? Ask whoever drove the car last before leaving, rather than when the light goes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Derbyshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Hawthorn Way, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park then switch off properly.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you've found the filler and read the cap.
- Both under a single flap? Then make sure the lid on your diesel side is still shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Don't go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Woodnook already?
Short order, then. Top of it: your engine remains off. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the car on. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of your tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
At a forecourt — Esso, Lady Wood Garage or any other — the staff will normally help roll the vehicle away, if you ask. If you're on your own driveway around Woodnook, leave the vehicle where it sits.
Already run? Pull over once it's safe, then switch off. On the M1, under 10 miles from Woodnook, that means the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Woodnook is smaller a job than a trip of under 10 miles towards Sheffield, and so say.
What happens when our engineers get there in Woodnook
Wherever the car has stopped, be it by Holme Hall Primary School, near Woodland Bollard or on your own drive, the van comes to it. Both the work and the quote depend on three answers — what liquid, which quantity, and if it's run — so our technicians ask. On the call itself, you are told the price — ahead of anything else.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the entire system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and none of it washes away by itself. That is why it counts more. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. The motor is fired up next and checked to make sure it runs correctly, all before our engineers leave.
If your motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Woodnook, for a moment
Woodnook is a small hamlet situated on the lakeside in Derbyshire, with a population of around 1356 residents. Woodnook sits at an elevation of 132 metres, close to the nearby settlements of Ashgate, Old Brampton, and Cutthorpe. Woodnook is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Woodnook is located approximately 9.4 miles from Sheffield, making it a commuter base for the city.
AdBlue drains about Woodnook, and Derbyshire beyond
Throughout S postcodes, the teams that cover Woodnook — a rural hamlet — work the surrounding spots too, Cutthorpe and Old Brampton included. Quickest of all: quote a S42 7 postcode to the van.
Shifting your car isn't needed. The drain happens on the spot, whether a driveway, a street near St Peter and St Paul Church, or a lay-by towards Sims Wood. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of The School Room.
For Woodnook people, the short version
Pour no AdBlue until you have read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it wherever it is, anywhere in Derbyshire: keep the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103.