Edge Hill: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and the ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. Normally, if your motor has not turned, it's drained and fully flushed where your car is in Edge Hill. Nothing happened yet? Below, the page explains the why it occurs and the ways to avoid it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel goes to your engine — yet plenty of newer diesels seen around Edge Hill and Liverpool hold another fluid too. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream and cleans it.
Different tanks, different fillers. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, the diesel side gets filled constantly. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. That gap is where the mistake lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Edge Hill: how it occurs
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Woodside Street before work, or in the car park outside The Royal Arms on the way home.
Then, your hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old motor — since a hire car, a new car or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
Nothing halts the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it occurs in Kensington or the middle of Edge Hill, it's the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you tip anything, on a drive in Toxteth or a forecourt around Edge Hill.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of cars mark which goes in which inlet just there.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside the nearest station.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Merseyside that is.
- Switch off once parked — flat ground, engine off, and not rushed beside Boothwood Close on the verge.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, yet it works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Leave out step five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Edge Hill?
The short order of things, starting with not starting your engine. Leave your ignition off too, since on many diesels switching it on alone runs the pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the Shell or the BP, ask the staff to help push the car away from the pump. Your own driveway around Edge Hill is the place it stays.
Where the engine has run by now, pull over somewhere safe and switch the vehicle off. Come off the M62 — under 3 miles out of Edge Hill — at the next exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Liverpool, under 3 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Edge Hill.
What takes place when our technicians turn up around Edge Hill
Our van comes to your car anywhere it has come to rest — your own drive, beside St Anne's, or by St Anne's Catholic Primary School. Those replies settle this work and the price, so our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and if it's run. You get that price on the phone, before anyone sets off.
Draining your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the fuel system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. Filter flushed or, if it must be, swapped; clean diesel in; then a test of the car. Before we leave, we start the engine and check that it's running properly.
Unstarted vehicles mostly mean a half-hour visit after arrival. The equipment is safe on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a driveway after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Edge Hill itself
Edge Hill is a suburban area in Merseyside, situated close to the city of Liverpool and overlooking the coastal plain of the Irish Sea. Edge Hill sits at an elevation of 61 metres, with its terraced housing stock characteristic of the area's architectural heritage. Edge Hill is bordered by other Liverpool suburbs, including Kensington and Princes Park, and remains a densely populated residential community with a population of around 8633 people.
AdBlue drains across Merseyside, Edge Hill included
Over L postcodes, the teams covering Edge Hill — a residential suburb — work the surrounding locations too, Princes Park and Elm Park among them. Give a postcode that starts L7 3, and our van gets there quickest.
Your car stays put. Draining happens on the spot, be it a driveway, a street near Joseph Williamson, or a layby on the way to Henderson Green. Awkward to explain, like the back of Williamson Tunnels? Close to a border? Checking is better than guessing, and so ring.
For Edge Hill people, the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, anywhere across Merseyside: switch the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103.