How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Woodthorpe
Stop reading for a moment when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Woodthorpe. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of current diesels on the roads around Woodthorpe and Sherwood carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. Plenty of vehicles have a single flap for both, while others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled on each filling station visit, week in, week out. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. That gap is where the mistake lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Woodthorpe: how it occurs
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Maitland Avenue, perhaps outside The Plainsman on the way home after work.
Unfamiliar motors are second, too. Hire cars, new cars and company cars place their fillers in new places, and the hand goes for the cap used on the old one.
Third, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in as readily, and after the pour starts, no part halts it. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Woodthorpe or out in Mapperley.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Woodthorpe forecourt or a drive out in Daybrook, take a couple of seconds on these before any goes in.
- Check the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally are not.
- Many vehicles give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on many motors. Check for it.
- The handbook shows which it is if your filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver knows. Check when you collect a rental or company car — from Carlton's car park, perhaps — rather than once the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
Anywhere across Nottinghamshire the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Turn off after you park — level ground, motor off, and never rushed by Breck Hill Road at the roadside.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, but it does the trick.
- Both under one flap? Then confirm the cap on your diesel side is still shut before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then look once more — making sure the diesel filler remained closed throughout. After that, start your car.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop just there. Leave out step five entirely.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Woodthorpe already?
Short order, then. First: the motor remains off. Keep your ignition off too, because on many diesels switching it on alone starts your fuel pump. Thinning it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom rather than mixing — and that is where your fuel is sucked from.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it is the Co-op or the BP, ask the staff to help roll the car away from the pump. On your own drive in Woodthorpe? So your car remains where it is.
When your motor has run by now, pull over somewhere safe then turn the car off. Woodthorpe lies under 5 miles from the M1; on it, take the first exit. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Woodthorpe is less a job than a run of under 3 miles to Nottingham, so say.
What takes place when our engineers get there around Woodthorpe
Our van comes to your car wherever it stopped — your own driveway, near St Mark's Church, or by The Good Shepherd Catholic Primary, Arnold. What fluid went in, the amount, and if it ran: our engineers ask because those replies decide the work and quote. Nobody heads out until you have had the quote by phone.
Then that tank is cleared and your system cleaned thoroughly. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Before leaving, our technicians fire it up and make sure that it is running properly.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour after we get there, provided your motor hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. Paying happens 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 plenty of policies.
About Woodthorpe itself
Woodthorpe is a suburban area located near Nottingham in the East Midlands, sitting at an elevation of around 96 metres. Woodthorpe lies approximately 2.4 miles from Nottingham city centre and is surrounded by other suburban areas such as Mapperley and Porchester. Woodthorpe has a population of around 6801 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Woodthorpe is situated inland, about 110.6 miles north of London.
AdBlue drains in Woodthorpe and across Nottinghamshire
Porchester and Arnold are among the places around Woodthorpe, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, over NG postcodes. A postcode starting NG5 4 gets our van to you fastest.
No need to shift your car. Anywhere it stands — beside Mapperley Library, in a lay-by heading to Breck Hill Recreation Ground, on a drive — that's where it gets emptied. Awkward to pin down, like the back of Woodthorpe Library? Close to a border? Asking is better than assuming, and so phone.
For Woodthorpe drivers, the short version
Always, the cap; after that, the tip. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere in Nottinghamshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — so leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.