How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Horn Smithies
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then put this page down a moment, keep your ignition and engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, carried out right where your car sits around Horn Smithies, is normally what it needs if caught before the motor runs. The remainder of this page covers why it occurs and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of newer diesels in Page Moss, like those in Horn Smithies, carry on two fluids; your motor takes only the diesel. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the gas to clean it, from a separate tank.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Other vehicles put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have both side by side under one flap. Topping up your diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. The AdBlue side is topped up far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in that gap that the mistake happens.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Horn Smithies: how it takes place
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things coming up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Heath Road before work, or in the car park outside The Old Bank on the way home.
Next, your hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old car — since a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
No part stops the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Fincham or the middle of Horn Smithies: it takes the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A few seconds is all these take — so check them before you tip anything, on a drive in Roby or a forecourt in Horn Smithies.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue ones are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- Plenty of vehicles fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on many cars. Check for it.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it is 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 — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Roby.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
When the light goes on, wherever around Merseyside, 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 Stockbridge Lane.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap works — once you've found the filler and read the cap.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting your car, close the cap and look again that the diesel cap never opened off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Leave out step five entirely.
Horn Smithies: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your motor. The fuel pump runs on many diesels as soon as the ignition is switched on — so keep it off. Filling up with diesel won't dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of the tank, right where the fuel is drawn from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it's the Shell or the Asda, ask the staff to help roll the car clear of the pump. If you are on your own driveway in Horn Smithies, leave the car where it stands.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Come off the Huyton Spur — under a mile out of Horn Smithies — at the next junction. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Horn Smithies is a smaller job than driving under 10 miles towards Liverpool — so tell us about how far it went.
What occurs when we arrive in Horn Smithies
Our van reaches the vehicle wherever it stopped — your own drive, near Trinity Church, or by Park View Academy. Our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and if it has run, because the replies determine this work and our price. You get that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off.
After that: draining, then a full flush of the whole system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. Filter cleaned or, if it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a check of the vehicle. After that our technicians fire it up and check it runs smoothly before leaving.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine hasn't run take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. The insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once this job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. It is worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Horn Smithies and where it is
Horn Smithies is a suburban area located on the riverside in Merseyside, with a mix of terraced housing and local amenities. Horn Smithies sits at an elevation of 29 metres, close to the city of Liverpool, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Fincham and Woolfall Heath. Horn Smithies is part of the larger urban area of Liverpool, with the city centre just 5 miles away. Horn Smithies has a population of approximately 8124 residents, living in a predominantly terraced housing environment.
AdBlue drains round Horn Smithies, and Merseyside beyond
Woolfall Heath and Huyton Farm are among the places near Horn Smithies, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, throughout L postcodes. A postcode starting L36 3 gets the van to you fastest.
There's no need to shift your car. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to St Aloysius, a lay-by on the way to Jubilee Park, a driveway. Tricky to pin down, like the back of St Dominic's Roman Catholic Church? Close to a border? Checking beats assuming, so phone.
The short version for Horn Smithies people
First, the cap; after that, the tip. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave it off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it sits, anywhere across Merseyside.