Cooksongreen: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Stop reading for a moment when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Cooksongreen. Not happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page explains the reasons it happens and the how to prevent it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many modern diesels in Norley, as well as Cooksongreen, carry on two fluids; your engine gets only your diesel. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, where a spray cleans the gas.
There is a filler on each tank. 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. Topping up your diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. That gap is where the mistake lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Cooksongreen: how it occurs
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Hurry follows from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a drive off Kingsley Road, or heading home in the car park outside Hare and Hounds.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after started, carries on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Cooksongreen or out in Crowton.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all these take — so check them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Acton Bridge or a forecourt around Cooksongreen.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many cars carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Cannot see it beside the diesel filler? Then look beneath the bonnet or in the boot — the owner's manual says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Acton Bridge.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
When the light goes on, wherever around Cheshire, use this routine.
- Switch off once parked — level ground, motor off, and never in a rush by Norley Lane on the verge.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you've found the filler and read it.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, make sure it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Stage five stays off limits.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Cooksongreen?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your motor. Keep your ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels it by itself starts the pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the attendants to help roll the car clear of the petrol pump if you're at a forecourt — the Wharton Lake Garage, the Esso or anywhere else. At home around Cooksongreen? Then the car remains where it is.
When your motor has run already, stop safely then turn it off. Cooksongreen lies under 5 miles from the M56; there, take the first exit. A short hop across Cooksongreen is a smaller job than a run towards Chester, under 15 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
When our engineers get there around Cooksongreen, what happens?
Anywhere your car has stopped, whether by Crowton Christ Church CofE Primary School, beside Crowton Village Hall or on your own drive, our van travels to it. Our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and if it's run, since the answers decide this work and the quote. On the call itself, you are told the price — before dispatch.
Draining that tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the fuel system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more here than with petrol. Testing comes at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the filter is flushed or replaced as needed. Then we start the engine and make sure it runs correctly before we go.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once our engineers arrive, as long as your motor has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Cooksongreen, briefly
Cooksongreen is a locality situated on the riverside in Cheshire, with an elevation of 19 metres above sea level. Cooksongreen lies near the city of Chester, approximately 11.7 miles away, and is close to other nearby places such as Crowton, Onston, and Ruloe. Cooksongreen has a population of around 516 people and predominantly features detached housing. Cooksongreen is located in the North West region of England, about 161.1 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Cheshire, Cooksongreen included
Cooksongreen is a small village, and the vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Onston and Ruloe among them, across the CW postcode area. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting CW8 2.
There's no need to move your car. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Crowton Millennium Green, a side street close to Crowton War Memorial: our engineers drain the vehicle where it stands. Awkward to explain, like the back of Christ Church, Crowton? Close to a border? Asking beats assuming, so ring.
Cooksongreen people: the short version
Tip nothing till you have read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, wherever across Cheshire: keep it off and phone 0333 366 0103.