How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Wymeswold
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. Around Wymeswold, catching it before your motor turns usually means a drain and a full flush where it stands. Here before the event? Then what follows explains how it happens and how to prevent it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels around Hoton, like those in Wymeswold, run on two liquids; your motor takes just the diesel. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust gas to clean it.
Each tank has its own filler. Many of cars share a single flap for the two, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. The AdBlue side is filled far less commonly, usually from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens around Wymeswold
It's hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the car, and letting it run out leads to limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off The Stockwell, perhaps outside The Three Crowns on the way home that evening.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have 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, and so nothing stops the tip once it has started. Whether it takes place in Rempstone or the middle of Wymeswold, it's the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these first, on a forecourt in Wymeswold or a drive over in Prestwold. A few seconds, that's all.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally don't.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on many vehicles. Check for it.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Loughborough.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Wherever in Leicestershire the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time to spare — never rushing on the side of Rectory Place.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It sounds silly. It does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both sit under a flap, confirm it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and check again — confirm your diesel filler remained closed the whole time. After that, start the vehicle.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Leave out step five entirely.
Wymeswold: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Short list, then. Top of that: the engine stays unstarted. Leave your ignition off as well, because on many diesels switching it on alone runs your pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
The attendants at Murco, Total or another forecourt will usually lend a hand pushing the car clear when asked. Your own driveway around Wymeswold is the place it stays.
Already started? Pull over when it is safe, then turn off. Leave the M1 — under 10 miles out of Wymeswold — at the first junction. Mileage matters — a short hop across Wymeswold is a smaller job than heading under 15 miles to Nottingham — so say roughly how far it went.
What takes place when our technicians get there in Wymeswold
By Wymeswold Church of England Primary School, near Parish Church of Saint Mary or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Both the work and our price depend on three answers — what liquid, what amount, and whether it's run — so our technicians ask. On the call itself, you are told our quote — before anything else.
The system is then flushed thoroughly, after the tank is cleared. Much more than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: crystals build up, certain metals are attacked, and nothing clears out on its own, no matter how long it sits. Once the fuel filter has been cleaned — or renewed, if needed — fresh diesel goes in, and then the vehicle is tested. We don't go until it has been started and is running correctly.
If the motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Your insurer will ask for the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours once this job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Wymeswold
Wymeswold is a village in Leicestershire, situated near the River Wreake in the East Midlands region of England. Wymeswold sits at an elevation of 78 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Wymeswold is located close to several nearby places, including Rempstone, Thorpe in the Glebe, and Burton on the Wolds, and is approximately 10.6 miles from Nottingham. Wymeswold has a population of around 921 residents.
Wymeswold and Leicestershire: AdBlue drains across the area
Thorpe in the Glebe and Burton on the Wolds are among the towns near Wymeswold, a village, that the same teams cover, over LE postcodes. A postcode starting LE12 6 gets the van to you fastest.
Shifting your car isn't necessary. Draining happens right there, whether a drive, a road near Wymeswold Village Sign, or a layby towards The Washdyke. Guessing won't help behind Wymeswold Village Pound, on a border, or somewhere awkward to describe; phone and check.
For Wymeswold motorists, the short version
Tip no AdBlue until you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere around Leicestershire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — and so leave it off and ring 0333 366 0103.