Copthorne: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Stop reading a minute when the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Copthorne. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Not one fluid but two: that's what many newer diesels near Copthorne and Bowbrook carry, with diesel feeding your motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. Some vehicles put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty more place the two side by side under one flap. Diesel goes in at each filling station visit, week in, week out. Far less frequently, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place around Copthorne
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Oakfield Road before work, or in the car park outside The Beacon on the way home.
Then your car is new. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Lastly, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as easily, and once the pour begins, nothing halts it. Porthill or the heart of Copthorne: it is the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these first, on a forecourt around Copthorne or a drive over in Frankwell. Seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally isn't. Read it rather than going by position.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- Can't find it next to your diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or inside the boot — the owner's manual says where.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Shrewsbury, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Shropshire that is.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time to spare — not rushing on the side of Mytton Oak Road.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — after you have found the filler and read the cap.
- Both under one flap? So make sure the lid on your diesel side stays closed ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Don't go on to step five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Copthorne?
Do not start the motor: that is how the short order of things starts. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the vehicle on. Topping up with diesel will not weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of the tank, right where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Local, Esso or any other — the staff will usually help roll your car clear, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Copthorne.
When your engine has been run by now, pull over somewhere safe then switch the car off. Leave the M54 — under 10 miles out of Copthorne — at the next exit. A short hop across Copthorne is a smaller job than a run towards Wrexham, under 50 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our engineers arrive around Copthorne, what takes place?
By Woodfield Infant School & Nursery, near 23rd Shrewsbury Scout hut or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, we come to it. Which liquid got in, the amount, and whether it ran: our engineers ask because those replies decide both work and quote. No one heads out before you've had the price by phone.
Emptying your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the fuel system. Much more than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: crystals build up, certain metals corrode, and none of that clears away unaided, however long it sits. The filter flushed or, where it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a test of the vehicle. The engine is started next and tested to be sure it runs properly, all before we head off.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine hasn't run take about half an hour once we are there. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, have a look at your policy; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Copthorne
Copthorne is a suburban area in Shropshire, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of 77 metres. Copthorne lies near the Welsh border, approximately 25 miles from Wrexham and 140 miles northwest of London. Copthorne is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock and is located near other residential areas such as Porthill and Radbrook. Copthorne has a population of around 4789 residents.
AdBlue drains about Copthorne, and Shropshire beyond
Throughout SY postcodes, the teams covering Copthorne — a residential suburb — work the surrounding locations too, Shelton and Radbrook included. A postcode starting SY3 8 gets our van to you fastest.
Your car remains where it is. Wherever it sits — near Woodfield Tennis Club, on a lay-by heading to Shorncliffe Drive Recreation Ground, on a drive — that's where it is emptied. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Plymouth Brethren Severn Gospel Hall.
For Copthorne drivers, the short version
Pour nothing until you've read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it wherever it is, anywhere around Shropshire: keep the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103.