How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Doe Green
Pause here a minute when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then phone 0333 366 0103. Around Doe Green, catching it before the motor runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush on the spot. 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 vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Many modern diesels on the roads round Doe Green and Great Sankey carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. The exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to fresh them, from a separate tank.
Every tank comes with a filler of its own. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. Seldom filled, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, poured by a driver who has to stop and think which cap it needs. It's in the gap that the mistake happens.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur in Doe Green?
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
Hurry comes from the warning. The vehicle tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off Beech Avenue, or heading home in the car park at Crown and Cushion.
Unfamiliar motors come next, as well. Hire cars, new motors and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and the hand goes for the cap it used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip after it has started. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Doe Green or out in Penketh.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Lingley Mere or a forecourt around Doe Green.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally do not.
- Many vehicles give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of cars carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler is if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Ask 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 Sankey for Penketh.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
Anywhere in Cheshire the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Cuerdley Road, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park then switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It seems silly. It works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then look once more — confirm the diesel cap remained closed the whole time. Only then, start the vehicle.
Discover during the second or third step that AdBlue went in the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Step five is out.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Doe Green?
Do not start the motor: that's how the short order of things starts. Leave your ignition off too, since on plenty of diesels switching it on alone starts the pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it's the BP or the Texaco, ask the attendants to help push the vehicle away from the petrol pump. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Doe Green.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. Doe Green lies under 3 miles from the M62; there, take the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Doe Green is smaller a job than a run of under 15 miles to Liverpool, and so tell us.
What occurs when our technicians arrive around Doe Green
Outside Penketh Primary School, near The Oaks or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, we come to it. Our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it has run, because the answers decide this work and our quote. On the phone call itself, you hear the price — ahead of dispatch.
Your system is then rinsed thoroughly, after that tank is emptied. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. Once the filter is flushed — or replaced, if needed — fresh diesel is added, and finally the car is tested. After that our technicians start the engine and check it runs smoothly before we go.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour once we get there, provided the engine hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet after dark beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Doe Green, for a moment
Doe Green is a suburban area in Cheshire, situated near the coast and approximately 12.8 miles from Liverpool. Doe Green has a relatively low elevation of 16 metres and is surrounded by nearby places such as Penketh and Cuerdley Cross. Doe Green is characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, which is typical of many suburban areas in the North West of England.
AdBlue drains across Cheshire, Doe Green included
Cuerdley Cross and Lingley Green are among the places near Doe Green, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, throughout WA postcodes. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting WA5 2.
The vehicle stays where it is. The drain takes place right there, be it a drive, a street by St Paul's, or a lay-by on the way to Doe Green Playing Fields. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Latham Hall.
Doe Green people: the short version
First, the cap; then, the pour. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Keep the car off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, throughout Cheshire.