How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Brereton Heath
Pause reading for a moment when the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then call 0333 366 0103. Usually, if the motor has not run, it is drained and fully flushed where the car is around Brereton Heath. Here before the event? Then what follows explains why it comes about and how to prevent it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds your motor — but many newer diesels driven round Brereton Heath and Illidge Green hold a second fluid too. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, where spraying cleans the gas.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Some cars put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place both side by side under one flap. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. The error lives in that gap.
Brereton Heath: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
Hurry comes from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a drive off Brereton Court, or on the way home in the car park at the pub in the village.
Unfamiliar motors come next, too. Hire cars, new motors and company cars put their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap 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 pour after it has started. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Brereton Heath or out in Somerford.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Whether a Brereton Heath forecourt or a drive over in Somerford Booths, take a few seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Check for it.
- Cannot find it beside your diesel inlet? Then look beneath the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook will say which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Holmes Chapel? Check with the person who drove it last before leaving, not once the light goes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
For the day the warning comes on — wherever it is around Cheshire — a routine to follow.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Holly Croft.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — once you've located the filler and read the cap.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle 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 a second time. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Brereton Heath already?
Don't start your motor: that is where the short order of things begins. Keep the ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself runs the pump. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the base instead of mixing — and that is where your fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Gulf, BP or any forecourt will usually lend a hand to push the vehicle clear if asked. If you are on your own drive in Brereton Heath, leave the vehicle where it stands.
Already run? Stop once it's safe, then switch off. Come off the M6 — under 3 miles out of Brereton Heath — at the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Brereton Heath is smaller work than a trip of under 15 miles to Stoke-on-Trent, and so tell us.
When we arrive in Brereton Heath, what takes place?
Our van comes to your car anywhere it stopped — your own drive, beside All Saints' Chapel of Ease, or outside Brereton CofE Primary School. Which fluid got in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our engineers ask because those replies set both work and price. That price comes on the call, before any van leaves.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of it washes out by itself. Hence it counts more. The filter cleaned or, where needed, replaced; clean diesel in; then a check of your vehicle. Next our technicians fire it up and confirm it runs properly before leaving.
Unrun vehicles mostly need a half-hour job from the moment we arrive. The equipment is safe on a live forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. It is worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Brereton Heath, for a moment
Brereton Heath is a village in Cheshire, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of 82 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Brereton Heath lies near the villages of Somerford and Davenport, and is approximately 11.8 miles from Stoke-on-Trent. Brereton Heath has a population of around 543 people, and is located in a rural area with nearby Smethwick Green. Brereton Heath is also relatively distant from London, at a distance of 147.2 miles.
AdBlue drains around Brereton Heath, and Cheshire beyond
Brereton Heath is a village, and our teams that cover it also work the towns near it, Davenport and Smethwick Green among them, across the CW postcode area. A postcode starting CW12 4 gets our van to you fastest.
The vehicle remains where it is. Wherever it sits — near Davenport Methodist Church, in a lay-by en route to The Moss, on a drive — that's where it is emptied. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Totem Pole? By a county line? Asking beats assuming, so ring.
In short, for Brereton Heath drivers
First, the cap; after that, the tip. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it wherever it is, wherever around Cheshire: keep the car off then ring 0333 366 0103.