High Ercall: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Keep your engine and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Normally, when your engine hasn't run, it is emptied and thoroughly cleaned where your car sits in High Ercall. The rest of this page explains why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't — useful if you are reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to your motor — but many modern diesels seen round High Ercall and Roden carry a second liquid too. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust stream and cleans it.
Each tank has its own filler. Other motors put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more place the two side by side under one flap. Filling the diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. Seldom filled, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, tipped by a driver who must stop and think which cap to use. The mistake grows in the gap between the two.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place in High Ercall
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Shop Lane before work, or in the car park at the pub in the village on the way home.
New-to-you vehicles come second, as well. Hire cars, new motors and company cars place their fillers in new places, and the hand reaches for the cap used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after started, keeps on. Whether it takes place in Cotwall or the middle of High Ercall, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt in High Ercall or a drive over in Poynton. Seconds, no more.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of motors carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Wellington (Shropshire), ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
On the day the warning comes on — wherever you are across Shropshire — a simple routine to follow.
- Not in a rush on the side of Shrewsbury Road, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park then switch off first.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you've found your filler and read it.
- Both behind a single flap? Then confirm the lid on your diesel side stays closed ahead of raising the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Never go on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around High Ercall?
Brief order, then. First: your motor remains off. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Thinning it with more diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the base rather than mixing — and that is where your fuel is pulled from.
The staff at Pace, Shell or another forecourt will normally help to push the car away if you ask. Your own driveway in High Ercall is where it should stay.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. The next exit is the place to come off if you're on the M54, under 5 miles from High Ercall. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across High Ercall is smaller a job than a run of under 25 miles to Wolverhampton, so say.
Our arrival around High Ercall, and what occurs next
Outside High Ercall Primary School, close to St Michael & All Angels or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our technicians come to it. Both the work and the quote depend on three answers — what fluid, which quantity, and if it has run — so our technicians ask. Nobody heads out before you have had the price by phone.
Your system is then purged thoroughly, once that tank is emptied. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. After your filter is cleaned — or renewed, if required — fresh diesel goes in, and then your car gets tested. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running properly.
If the motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. While we travel, take a look at your policy; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About High Ercall
High Ercall is a small village in Shropshire, situated in the inland countryside of the West Midlands region. High Ercall has a relatively low elevation of 72 metres and is located near several other small settlements, including Cotwall, Walton, and Osbaston. High Ercall is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock and is home to a population of around 768 people. High Ercall is also within commuting distance of larger cities, with Wolverhampton approximately 23 miles away.
AdBlue drains round High Ercall, and Shropshire beyond
Being a rural village, High Ercall shares its vans surrounding areas — Walton, Osbaston — right across TF postcodes and the wider area beyond. A postcode starting TF6 6 gets our van to you fastest.
No need to move your car. We drain it where it is — a side street close to High Ercall Village Hall, a lay-by on the way to Hoo Coppice, a drive. Awkward to pin down, like the back of Rodington Village Hall? By a border? Asking beats guessing, and so ring.
High Ercall drivers: the short version
Read the cap before you tip. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Keep it switched off and phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, across Shropshire.