Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Elworth: Why It Happens
Keep your motor and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Usually, when your motor has not run, it is emptied and fully cleaned where your vehicle sits around Elworth. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Many current diesels on the roads around Elworth and Moston Green carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank comes with a filler of its own. Other cars put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty more place the two side by side under one flap. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump happens constantly. Much less often, the AdBlue side gets topped up — normally from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. It is in the gap that the mistake lives.
Elworth: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
On a drive off Station Road before work, or in the car park at The Midland heading home: that's where the rushed top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low your car warns you, and if it is gone, limp mode follows.
The old car's cap is where the hand reaches — but a rental car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That's the second thing: a new motor.
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 once it has started. It takes seconds, whether out in Moston or bang in the centre of Elworth.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Be it a Elworth forecourt or a driveway over in Hollinsgreen, spend a couple of seconds over these before any goes in.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- On many motors, size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of motors have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- Cannot find it next to your diesel inlet? In that case look below the bonnet or inside the boot — the handbook will say which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Sandbach.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Cheshire that is.
- Turn off after you park — flat ground, motor off, and never rushed by London Road at the roadside.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, yet it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the vehicle on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then look again — making sure your diesel cap remained shut the whole time. Only then, start the car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Step five stays off limits.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Elworth already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your engine. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels as soon as the ignition is switched on — so keep it off. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
At a forecourt — Asda, BP or another — the attendants will usually help push your car away, when you ask. On your own drive in Elworth? So your car stays put.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your motor has already run. On the M6, under 3 miles from Elworth, that means the next junction. About how far did it go? Crossing Elworth is less work than a trip of under 15 miles to Stoke-on-Trent, so tell us.
Elworth: what takes place when our engineers get there
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Elworth CofE Primary School, close to Elworth Methodist Church or on your own driveway. The replies settle the work and the price, so we ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it has run. No one heads out before you have heard the quote over the phone.
After that: draining, then a full flush of the entire system. Much more than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: crystals build up, some metals corrode, and none of it clears away unaided, however long it sits. Once the fuel filter has been flushed — or replaced, if needed — clean diesel goes in, and finally your car is tested. Before we leave, we fire it up and check that it's running properly.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the engine hasn't run need roughly half an hour after we arrive. The insurer will ask for an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours once this job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Before we get there, have a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Elworth and where it is
Elworth is a village in Cheshire, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of 61 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Elworth lies near the cities of Stoke-on-Trent and Crewe, and is close to the villages of Moston and Ettiley Heath. Elworth has a population of approximately 3088 residents and is located in the North West region of England, about 148 miles from London. Elworth is surrounded by rural landscapes and nearby settlements like Stud Green.
AdBlue drains around Elworth, and Cheshire beyond
Ettiley Heath and Stud Green are among the places around Elworth, a village, that the same vans cover, throughout CW postcodes. Quickest of all: give a CW11 3 postcode for the van.
The vehicle doesn't need to move. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Geoffrey Hamilton Palmer, a lay-by on the way to Elworth Park, a driveway. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Elworth Cricket Club.
For Elworth motorists, the short version
Always, the cap; after that, the pour. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it wherever it stands, anywhere in Cheshire: keep it off and call 0333 366 0103.