Broughton: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Keep your motor and ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain and a full flush, carried out just where your vehicle stands around Broughton, is usually what it takes if found before the engine runs. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds your motor — yet many current diesels seen round Broughton and Gorstella hold a second liquid as well. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to clean them, from a separate tank.
There's a filler on each tank. Other vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place the two side by side under one flap. The diesel side is topped up at the petrol pump all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less frequently, usually from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake grows in the gap between them.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place around Broughton?
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the car, and running out means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Hope Road, or at Offas Dyke Hotel on the way home after work.
Unfamiliar cars come second, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company vehicles put their fillers in new places, and habit 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 once the tip begins, no part halts it. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Broughton or out in Lower Kinnerton.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Higher Kinnerton or a forecourt around Broughton, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Look for it.
- Cannot find it next to the diesel inlet? Then check below the bonnet or in your boot — the owner's manual will say which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Hawarden, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Flintshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of The Rookery, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park then switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- The two behind a single flap? Then make sure the lid on your diesel filler is still shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and look once more — confirm the diesel cap remained closed the whole time. After that, start the car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Stage five stays off limits.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Broughton already?
Short list, then. Top of that: the engine stays unstarted. Leave the ignition off too, since on many diesels switching it on alone runs the pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
At a forecourt — Tesco, another forecourt nearby or any other — the attendants will normally help roll your car clear, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Broughton.
Already started? Pull over once it's sensible, then turn off. The next exit means the place to leave if you're on the M56, under 10 miles from Broughton. Distance counts — a quick hop across Broughton makes a smaller job than heading under 5 miles to Chester — so say about how far it went.
Broughton: what takes place when we turn up
Our engineers come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Dodleston CofE Primary School, near Saint Marys or on your own drive. Those answers settle the work and the quote, and so our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run. You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out.
Then the tank is emptied and the fuel system rinsed thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither washes out by itself. That is why it matters more. Filter flushed or, where needed, replaced; fresh diesel in; and then a test of your vehicle. Before leaving, we start it and confirm that it is running smoothly.
If your motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Broughton itself
Broughton is a village in Flintshire, situated inland near the England-Wales border, approximately 4.5 miles from Chester. Broughton has a relatively low elevation of around 25 metres and is surrounded by nearby places such as Lower Kinnerton and Bretton. Broughton is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, which reflects its development as a residential community. Broughton is located some 166 miles northwest of London, but its proximity to Chester has a more significant influence on its daily life.
AdBlue drains in Broughton and across Flintshire
Bretton and Old Warren are among the places near Broughton, a rural village, that the same vans cover, over CH postcodes. Fastest of all: give a CH4 0 postcode for our van.
The vehicle remains put. We drain it where it is — a side street near Cineworld, a lay-by on the way to Gravelhole Wood, a driveway. Assuming doesn't help behind Asda Living, close to a border, or somewhere hard to pin down; phone and ask.
The short version for Broughton motorists
First, the cap; then, the tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Flintshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — and so leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.