Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Kingsley: Why It Happens
Leave the motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Usually, when your motor has not turned, it's emptied and fully cleaned where the vehicle is in Kingsley. Reading before the event? In that case the rest covers why it comes about and how to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Plenty of current diesels on the roads round Kingsley and Kingsley Holt carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Different tanks, different fillers. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on many vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the petrol pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. Much less often, the AdBlue side is topped up — normally from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place around Kingsley
Carelessness seldom explains it. What does is three things lining up at once.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Hazles Cross Road, or at Blacksmiths Arms on the way home that evening.
Next, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old vehicle — because a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
A spouted bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, after started, keeps on. It's seconds, whether out in Hazles or bang in the heart of Kingsley.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Check these first, at a forecourt around Kingsley or a drive out in Froghall. Seconds, no more.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says which it is when your filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Blythe Bridge, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Staffordshire that is.
- Switch off after you park — level ground, motor off, and never rushed by Barncroft at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then check again — making sure the diesel filler stayed shut throughout. Only then, start your car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to stage five.
Kingsley: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Do not start your motor: that's where the short order of things starts. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it's the Shell or the Knights Of Cheadle, ask the attendants to help roll the vehicle away from the pump. If you're on your own driveway around Kingsley, leave it where it sits.
Already started? Stop when it is safe, then switch off. The next exit is where to leave if you're on the M6, under 15 miles from Kingsley. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Kingsley is smaller a job than a run of under 10 miles towards Stoke-on-Trent, and so tell us.
Kingsley: what occurs when our technicians arrive
Our van reaches the car wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside Kingsley Village Hall, or outside St Werburgh's CE (A) Primary School. Both the work and the price depend on three answers — what liquid, which quantity, and whether it has run — so we ask. The price comes over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
After that: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes out by itself. Hence it matters more. Testing is at the end: before that, clean diesel is added, and the fuel filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. Next our engineers start the engine and check it runs properly before leaving.
If the engine has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Nothing upfront; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Kingsley, for a moment
Kingsley is a village in Staffordshire, situated inland at an elevation of 204 metres, approximately 7.8 miles from Stoke-on-Trent. Kingsley has a population of around 1050 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Kingsley is close to nearby places such as Hazles, Hazlecross, and Hazles Cross, and is about 130.8 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Staffordshire, Kingsley included
Kingsley is a rural village, and the teams that cover it also work the towns near it, Hazlecross and Hazles Cross among them, across the ST postcode area. Give a postcode beginning ST10 2, and the van gets there fastest.
The vehicle doesn't need to shift. Wherever it sits — near St Werbergh's, on a layby en route to Silverdale Wood, at home — that is where it is cleared. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Old Lime Kilns, ring and ask rather than assuming.
The short version for Kingsley motorists
First, the cap; then, the tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere around Staffordshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — so leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.