AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Cherry Orchard: Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and your ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Cherry Orchard. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds the engine — but many current diesels driven about Cherry Orchard and Red Hill carry a second liquid too. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to fresh it, from a separate tank.
There's a filler for every tank. Some cars keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more have both together behind one flap. Diesel goes in on each filling station visit, again and again. Much less frequently, the AdBlue side gets topped up — normally from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. It's in that gap that the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens around Cherry Orchard
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a driveway off Berwick Street before work, or in the car park at The Anchor heading home: that is where the rushed top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car warns you, and once it is gone, limp mode kicks in.
The old car's filler is where the hand reaches — but a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That is the second thing: an unfamiliar motor.
Third, the spout goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in just as easily, and after the pour begins, nothing stops it. Whether it happens in Diglis or the middle of Cherry Orchard, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Lower Wick or a forecourt around Cherry Orchard, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Position can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally do not.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler is if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Worcester Foregate Street.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Worcestershire that is.
- Pull in on level, motor off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of Waverley Street.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, but it works.
- Both behind one flap? So confirm the cap on the diesel filler is still closed ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Before you start the car, close the cap and check again that the diesel cap never opened off.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Never carry on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Cherry Orchard?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your motor. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch it on. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
Ask the staff to help push the car clear of the petrol pump if you are at a forecourt — the Esso, the Tesco or somewhere else. Your own driveway around Cherry Orchard is the place it stays.
Where the engine has run already, stop somewhere safe and switch it off. On the M5, under 3 miles from Cherry Orchard, that means the next junction. A short hop across Cherry Orchard is a smaller job than a run towards Worcester, under 3 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
Cherry Orchard: what takes place when our engineers arrive
Outside Cherry Orchard Primary School, near Cherry Orchard Centre or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our engineers come to it. Our engineers ask what was put in, about how much, and if it has run, because the replies settle the work and the quote. On the phone call itself, you hear our quote — ahead of dispatch.
The system is then cleaned thoroughly, after that tank is drained. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Filter cleaned or, where needed, swapped; clean diesel in; then a test of the vehicle. Next our technicians fire it up and check it runs smoothly before we leave.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor has not run need about half an hour once we are there. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Cherry Orchard
Cherry Orchard is a suburban area located on the riverside in Worcestershire, with a low elevation of around 20 metres. Cherry Orchard sits close to the city of Worcester, approximately 1 mile from the city centre, and is part of the wider West Midlands region. Cherry Orchard has a population of around 5085 people and predominantly consists of semi-detached housing.
AdBlue drains across Worcestershire, Cherry Orchard included
As a residential suburb, Cherry Orchard has the same vans as surrounding areas — St Peter The Great, St Peter the Great — all the way through WR postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Give a postcode beginning WR5 3, and our van arrives fastest.
The car does not need to shift. Anywhere it stands — near Saint Mark's Church, on a lay-by heading to Chapter Meadows, at home — that is where it is emptied. Guessing won't help at the back of Diglis Fish Pass Viewing Gallery, close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe; phone and check.
For Cherry Orchard people, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Leave the vehicle switched off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, across Worcestershire.