Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Helsby
Keep the motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Normally, if the motor has not run, it is drained and fully flushed where your car is around Helsby. Not happened yet? Further down, the page explains the reasons it occurs and the ways to prevent it altogether.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Not one liquid but two: that's how plenty of newer diesels near Helsby and Netherton carry, with diesel for your engine. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, and there spraying cleans the fumes.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on a lot of cars. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. That gap is where the slip lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Helsby: how it occurs
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
Haste comes from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off Mountain View, or on the way home in the car park outside Helsby Tap.
Unfamiliar cars are second, as well. Rentals, new motors and company vehicles place their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
Third, the spout fits: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in as easily, and once the tip begins, no part halts it. It's a few seconds, be it out in Alvanley or bang in the heart of Helsby.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt around Helsby or a drive over in Elton. Seconds, that's all.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally aren't.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by the diesel cap, it's in your 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 — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at the nearest station.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Anywhere in Cheshire the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Sandringham Avenue.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — after you have located your filler and read the cap.
- 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 is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, close the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap never came off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Step five stays off limits.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Helsby?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your engine. The fuel pump runs on many diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — and so leave it off. Topping up with diesel won't dilute it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of the tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Shell, Texaco or another forecourt will normally help pushing the car away if asked. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Helsby.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. The next junction means the place to come off when you are on the M56, under a mile from Helsby. About how far did it go? Crossing Helsby is less work than a run of under 10 miles towards Chester, and so say.
Our arrival in Helsby, and what happens next
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Helsby Hillside Primary School, near Helsby Methodist Church or on your own driveway. What fluid went in, the quantity, and if it ran: our engineers ask since the replies decide the work and quote. You get that price on the phone, before anyone heads out.
The fuel system is then rinsed thoroughly, after that tank is drained. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Filter cleaned or, if needed, replaced; clean diesel in; then a check of the vehicle. The motor is started next and checked to confirm it runs smoothly, all before our engineers go.
With pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor hasn't run need about half an hour after our engineers arrive. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents your insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Helsby, briefly
Helsby is a village in Cheshire, situated near the coast on the Wirral Peninsula, with an elevation of around 21 metres. Helsby lies approximately 7.7 miles from Chester and is surrounded by nearby places such as Alvanley and Hapsford. Helsby has a population of around 1822 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Helsby is located about 165.2 miles northwest of London, in the North West region of England.
AdBlue drains round Helsby, and Cheshire beyond
Being a coastal village, Helsby shares its vans surrounding places — Hapsford, Orchard Park — right across WA postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting WA6 0.
There's no need to shift the car. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Helsby Hill, a lay-by on the way to Helsby Quarry Woodland Park, a drive. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Helsby Community Library, ring and ask instead of guessing.
Helsby motorists: the short version
First, the cap; then, the tip. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, throughout Cheshire.