Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Haygate: Why It Happens
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Haygate. Here before the event? In that case what follows covers why it happens and what to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads round Haygate and Arleston carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
Every tank has a filler of its own. Some cars put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others have both side by side behind one flap. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled constantly. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less frequently, normally from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in the gap that the error happens.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Haygate: how it occurs
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a driveway off Hampton Hill before work, or in the car park outside Red Lion on the way home: that's where the rushed top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car warns you, and if it's empty, limp mode follows.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once started, carries on. It's a few seconds, whether out in Cluddley or right in the centre of Haygate.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Haygate forecourt or a driveway over in Wrockwardine, spend a couple of seconds on these before anything goes in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of motors have a label there showing 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.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check when you collect a rental or fleet car — at Wellington (Shropshire)'s car park, say — rather than once the warning appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
The day the light comes on, anywhere across Shropshire, follow this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Barnfield Crescent.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud while unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Step five stays out.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Haygate already?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting your engine. Don't switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel will not dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of the tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it is the BP or the Morrisons, ask the staff to help push the vehicle away from the pump. At home in Haygate? So your car remains put.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your motor has already run. On the M54, under a mile from Haygate, that means the next exit. Distance counts — a quick hop across Haygate is a smaller job than driving under 25 miles towards Wolverhampton — so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival around Haygate, and what occurs next
Our engineers come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Short Wood Primary School, close to Sunnycroft Gardens or on your own drive. Our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, because those answers decide this work and our price. You get that price by phone, before anyone sets off.
Then your tank is emptied and your system purged thoroughly. With AdBlue that counts 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. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Before leaving, our technicians fire it up and confirm that it's running properly.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where your motor hasn't run take roughly half an hour once we are there. No money upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. Before we get there, have a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Haygate
Haygate is a locality in Shropshire, situated inland at an elevation of 134 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Haygate lies approximately 18 miles from Wolverhampton and 130 miles from London, placing it in a relatively rural setting. Haygate is surrounded by other nearby places, including Cluddley, Wellington, and Steeraway, and has a population of around 1778 residents. Haygate's location in the West Midlands region of England reflects its position in the country's interior.
Haygate and Shropshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Being a small village, Haygate shares its vans surrounding areas — Wellington, Steeraway — right through TF postcodes and the surrounding area around them. A postcode starting TF1 2 gets our van to you fastest.
The car remains where it is. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Sunnycroft, a lay-by on the way to Bowring Park, a drive. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Wellington Town Council? By a border? Asking beats guessing, and so ring.
In short, for Haygate people
Before you tip, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave it off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it waits, anywhere around Shropshire.