Betley: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and your ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, carried out right where your vehicle stands around Betley, is normally all it takes when found before your motor runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Diesel feeds the motor — yet plenty of modern diesels seen about Betley and Ravenshall hold another liquid too. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, and there spraying treats the fumes.
Every tank has one filler of its own. Some vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have the two side by side under one flap. Diesel goes in on each filling station visit, again and again. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think what filler it needs. That gap is where the error lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen in Betley?
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Bowhill Lane before work, or in the car park outside The Swan on the way home.
Then the vehicle is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Buddileigh or the heart of Betley: it is the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt around Betley or a driveway out in Wrinehill. A few seconds, that's all.
- Check the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally aren't.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on many cars. Look for it.
- Can't see it beside your diesel inlet? Then look below the bonnet or in your boot — 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 outside Crewe.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Staffordshire that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Church Walk.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" out loud while unscrewing it. It sounds silly. It does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Skip step five entirely.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Betley already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your engine. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition goes on — so leave it off. Thinning it with extra diesel won't work, since AdBlue settles to the base instead of mixing — and that's where the fuel is sucked from.
The attendants at Shell, another forecourt nearby or another forecourt will usually help pushing the car clear if asked. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around Betley.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your motor has already run. Leave the M6 — under 3 miles out of Betley — at the next junction. A short hop across Betley is a smaller job than a run towards Stoke-on-Trent, under 10 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
When we arrive in Betley, what happens?
By Betley CofE VC Primary School, close to Saint Margarets Betley or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, since those answers decide the work and the quote. The quote comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Then that tank is cleared and your system cleaned thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and none of that clears away by itself. That is why it matters more. After the fuel filter is cleaned — or renewed, where needed — clean diesel is added, and finally your vehicle gets tested. We do not go until it has been started and is running correctly.
If your motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. 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 make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Betley and where it is
Betley is a small village in Staffordshire, situated inland at an elevation of 88 metres, approximately 8 miles from Stoke-on-Trent. Betley has a population of around 639 people, with predominantly detached housing. Betley is surrounded by nearby places such as Buddileigh, Betley Common, and Cracow Moss, and is located about 141 miles northwest of London.
Betley and Staffordshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Betley is a rural village, and our vans that cover it also work the places near it, Betley Common and Cracow Moss among them, across the CW postcode area. Quickest of all: quote a CW3 9 postcode to our van.
The car stays put. Draining happens on the spot, be it a drive, a street by Betley Village Hall, or a lay-by towards Bowsey Wood. Guessing doesn't help behind All Saints Balterley, on a border, or anywhere awkward to describe; ring and ask.
Betley motorists: the short version
Pour nothing until you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Staffordshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway — so leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.