Forsbrook: 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 engine and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Forsbrook. The remainder of this page covers why it takes place and how to make sure it does not — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Plenty of current diesels on the roads around Forsbrook and Draycott in the Moors carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, and there spraying cleans the gas.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. It's in the gap that the error lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Forsbrook: how it occurs
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a driveway off Scarratt Drive before work, or in the car park outside Butcher's Arms heading home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car warns you, and if it is empty, limp mode kicks in.
Then, your hand goes for the cap it knew on the old car — because a hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the pour after it has started. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Forsbrook or out in Blythe Marsh.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Boundary or a forecourt in Forsbrook, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally aren't.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says where it lives if your filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check as you collect a rental or company car — from Blythe Bridge's car park, perhaps — rather than once the warning appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Staffordshire that is.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of Cheadle Road.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — once you've found your filler and read the cap.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both sit under a flap, make sure it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Find at the second or third step that AdBlue went in the diesel filler? That is where you stop. Never carry on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Forsbrook?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the motor. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment your ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of that tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help push the car clear of the pump if you're at a forecourt — the JRM, the another forecourt nearby or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Forsbrook.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the motor has already run. The next junction is where to leave if you're on the M6, under 10 miles from Forsbrook. A short hop across Forsbrook is a smaller job than a run towards Stoke-on-Trent, under 10 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
When we turn up around Forsbrook, what occurs?
By Forsbrook CofE Controlled Primary School, close to Blythe Bridge & Forsbrook Village Hall or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Those replies decide this work and our quote, so we ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. That price comes over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Draining the tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. Much more than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: crystals build up, certain metals are attacked, and none of it washes away unaided, no matter how long it is left. A test is last: before that, clean diesel is added, and the fuel filter is cleaned or changed if necessary. Before we go, our engineers start it and check that it's running properly.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour after we get there, provided the engine has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet at night beside a house. 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 plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to check yours.
About Forsbrook and where it is
Forsbrook is a village in Staffordshire, situated inland at an elevation of 177 metres, approximately 6 miles from Stoke-on-Trent. Forsbrook is characterised by its semi-detached housing and is located near other small settlements such as Blythe Marsh and Blythe Bridge. Forsbrook has a population of around 1908 residents and is part of the wider West Midlands region. Forsbrook is also relatively close to Stonehouses, another nearby village.
AdBlue drains around Forsbrook and across Staffordshire
Blythe Bridge and Stonehouses are among the places near Forsbrook, a rural village, that the same vans cover, over ST postcodes. A postcode starting ST11 9 gets the van to you fastest.
Moving the car is not needed. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Saint Peter, a lay-by on the way to Forsbrook Play Area, a drive. Awkward to pin down, like the back of Foxfield Steam Railway? By a county line? Checking beats assuming, and so ring.
For Forsbrook people, the short version
Pour no AdBlue till you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave it off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it stands, anywhere in Staffordshire.