Chetwynd Aston: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Pause here for a moment if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then ring 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, done just where the car sits around Chetwynd Aston, is normally what it takes if caught before your engine runs. Here in advance? In that case what follows covers why it happens and what to prevent it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Not one liquid but two: that's what many newer diesels around Chetwynd Aston and Stockton carry, with diesel feeding your engine. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, and there spraying treats the gas.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. Plenty of motors have a single flap for the two, whereas some move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Much less often, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. It's in that gap that the error lives.
Chetwynd Aston: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
It's seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a drive off Littlehales Road before work, or in the car park at Wheatsheaf Inn heading home: that's where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car warns you, and if it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
Then, your hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old car — because a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not.
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. Whether it takes place in Church Aston or the middle of Chetwynd Aston, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt in Chetwynd Aston or a driveway out in Vauxhall. Seconds, no more.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- On many vehicles, the size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of motors have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Oakengates? Check with whoever drove it last before you set off, rather than when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
Wherever across Shropshire the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Not in a rush on the side of A518, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park then switch off properly.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, yet 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.
- Finish once the tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; until then, tip slowly through the built-in spout.
- Before starting the vehicle, shut the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap never opened off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Chetwynd Aston?
Don't start your motor: that's where the short order of things begins. Leave the ignition off too, since on many diesels it by itself starts the pump. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is pulled from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the BP or the Esso, ask the attendants to help push your car away from the pump. If you're on your own drive around Chetwynd Aston, leave the vehicle where it is.
Already started? Stop when it is sensible, then turn off. The next exit is the place to come off if you are on the M54, under 10 miles from Chetwynd Aston. Distance counts — a quick hop across Chetwynd Aston is a smaller job than heading under 25 miles to Wolverhampton — so say about how far it went.
When we turn up around Chetwynd Aston, what happens?
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Church Aston Infant School, near Sheep or on your own driveway. Which liquid was put in, the quantity, and if it ran: we ask since those replies decide both work and quote. The quote is given on the call, before any van leaves.
Then the tank is drained and the system cleaned thoroughly. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. Once the fuel filter is flushed — or replaced, where needed — clean diesel goes in, and finally your vehicle gets tested. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once our engineers get there, provided your motor hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, have a look at your insurance documents; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Chetwynd Aston and where it is
Chetwynd Aston is a small village in Shropshire, situated inland at an elevation of around 91 metres, and is located approximately 15 miles from Wolverhampton. Chetwynd Aston has a population of around 511 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Chetwynd Aston is close to nearby places such as Church Aston and Newport, and is about 128 miles northwest of London.
AdBlue drains across Shropshire, Chetwynd Aston included
Chetwynd Aston is a rural village, and the teams that cover it also work the towns near it, Pave Lane and Newport among them, across the TF postcode area. Quote a postcode that starts TF10 9, and the van gets there quickest.
The car stays where it is. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Queen Elizabeth II Park, a side street near Church Aston Village Hall: we drain it where it is. Assuming won't help at the back of St Andrew's Church, close to a border, or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and check.
In short, for Chetwynd Aston people
Pour no AdBlue until you've read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep the car switched off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, across Shropshire.