AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bidston Hill: How It Occurs and How to Prevent It
Pause here for a moment when the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, carried out just where the vehicle stands around Bidston Hill, is normally what it takes when found before the motor runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Diesel goes to your motor — yet many modern diesels seen around Bidston Hill and Claughton hold a second fluid as well. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, where spraying cleans the gas.
Each tank comes with a filler of its own. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in on each forecourt call-out, week in, week out. The AdBlue side is topped up far less often, normally from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in that gap that the mistake happens.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur around Bidston Hill?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the car, and running dry means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Bearley Close, or outside The Claughton Hotel on the way home after work.
Then, your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old car — because a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers where your last one did not.
No part halts the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Beechwood or the heart of Bidston Hill: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Upton or a forecourt around Bidston Hill, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally are not.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside your fuel flap: many motors carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- Can't see it next to the diesel inlet? In that case check beneath the bonnet or in the boot — the handbook will say where.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Bidston, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
Anywhere across Merseyside the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Statham Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- The diesel cap remains on. When both sit under a flap, make sure it's closed before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Before you start the vehicle, shut the cap and look again that your diesel cap was never opened off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Don't go on to stage five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Bidston Hill?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch it on. Diluting it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom rather than mixing — and that's where your fuel is pulled from.
The attendants at Tesco, BP or any forecourt will normally lend a hand to push the vehicle away if asked. If you're on your own driveway around Bidston Hill, leave the car where it sits.
When the motor has run by now, stop safely and switch the vehicle off. Bidston Hill lies under a mile from the M53; on it, take the next junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Liverpool, under 5 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Bidston Hill.
When we turn up in Bidston Hill, what occurs?
Anywhere the car has stopped, whether outside St Paul's Catholic Primary School, near Beechwood Community Trust or at home, the van travels to it. Both the work and our price rest on three replies — which fluid, which quantity, and whether it has run — so we ask. That price is given over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
After that: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes out unaided. That is why it counts more. The filter flushed or, if needed, replaced; fresh diesel in; and then a test of the car. Next our technicians fire it up and check it runs correctly before leaving.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once our engineers arrive, provided your motor has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a live forecourt and quiet at night beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Bidston Hill, briefly
Bidston Hill is a coastal locality in Merseyside, situated near the cities of Liverpool and Birkenhead. Bidston Hill sits at an elevation of 39 metres, overlooking the Irish Sea and the surrounding urban landscape. Bidston Hill is characterized by its terraced housing and proximity to nearby places such as Beechwood, Bidston, and Noctorum.
AdBlue drains about Bidston Hill, and Merseyside beyond
As a coastal area, Bidston Hill shares its vans nearby areas — Bidston, Noctorum — right through CH postcodes and the wider area beyond. Give a postcode that starts CH43 7, and the van arrives fastest.
Your car remains put. The drain takes place right there, be it a drive, a street near Beechwood Recreation Centre, or a lay-by on the way to Park Wood. Tricky to explain, like the back of Horse Carving? By a county line? Checking is better than assuming, and so phone.
For Bidston Hill people, the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Merseyside, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — and so leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.