Ifton Heath: 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 your motor and the ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, done just where the vehicle stands in Ifton Heath, is usually all it needs when found before the motor runs. Not happened yet? Below, the page covers the reasons it occurs and the ways to prevent it altogether.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Many modern diesels on the roads around Ifton Heath and New Ifton carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, and there a spray treats the gas.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on many cars. On others, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Diesel goes in on each filling station visit, again and again. Rarely topped up, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, poured by a driver who has to stop and think which cap it needs. That gap is where the error lives.
Ifton Heath: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
Hurry follows from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off Coopers Lane, or heading home in the car park at The Greyhound.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's seconds, whether in St Martins or right in the centre of Ifton Heath.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Check these first, at a forecourt in Ifton Heath or a driveway out in Pentre. A few seconds, that's all.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally do not.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- Look inside the fuel flap: many vehicles have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask as you collect a hire car or fleet car — from Gobowen's car park, perhaps — rather than when the warning appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Wherever across Shropshire the light comes on, here 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 Coopers Field.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" aloud while unscrewing it. It seems silly. It works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, 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've already poured into the diesel side. Stage five stays off limits.
Ifton Heath: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition goes on — and so leave it off. Thinning it with more diesel won't work, because AdBlue settles to the bottom rather than blending — and that's where your fuel is sucked from.
At a forecourt — Texaco, BP or any other — the staff will usually help push the car clear, if you ask. At home in Ifton Heath? Then the vehicle remains where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. Come off the M53 — under 25 miles out of Ifton Heath — at the next exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Wrexham, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Ifton Heath.
What happens when our technicians get there in Ifton Heath
The van comes to the vehicle anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, near St. Martins Methodist Church, or by Criftins CofE Primary School and Nursery. What fluid went in, the amount, and if it ran: we ask because those replies set both work and quote. You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out.
After that: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. More than with petrol, it counts here: the crystals form, certain metals are attacked, and nothing clears away unaided, however long it sits. The filter flushed or, if it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; then a check of the vehicle. Before leaving, our engineers fire it up and make sure that it is running properly.
Unstarted vehicles usually mean a half-hour visit from the moment we arrive. The equipment is safe on a busy filling station, and quiet enough for a residential street late at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Ifton Heath, briefly
Ifton Heath is a suburban area in eastern Shropshire, situated near the Welsh border at an elevation of around 128 metres. Ifton Heath lies close to the neighbouring communities of St Martins and Garden Village, and is within commuting distance of Wrexham. Ifton Heath has a population of approximately 1568 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Ifton Heath is located about 156 miles northwest of London, in the West Midlands region.
AdBlue drains across Shropshire, Ifton Heath included
Throughout SY postcodes, the teams that cover Ifton Heath — a residential suburb — work the surrounding locations too, Crosslanes and Garden Village among them. Give a postcode that starts SY11 3, and our van gets there quickest.
No need to move the car. We drain it where it is — a side street near St Martins Community Centre, a lay-by on the way to Memorial Garden, a drive. Tricky to explain, like the back of St Martin of Tours? Close to a border? Asking beats assuming, so phone.
In short, for Ifton Heath people
Before you pour, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Shropshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — and so leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103.