Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Light Oaks: Why It Happens
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Light Oaks. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
No single liquid but two: that is how plenty of newer diesels near Light Oaks and Bagnall carry, with diesel for your motor. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, where a spray cleans the fumes.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Plenty of vehicles have a single flap for both, while others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. Much less frequently, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen around Light Oaks?
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
Haste comes from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off Yew Tree Close, or on the way home in the car park at Travellers Rest.
New-to-you motors are second, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company motors place their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
No part stops the tip once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Light Oaks or out in Jack Hayes.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt in Light Oaks or a driveway out in Carmountside. A few seconds, no more.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones are often blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally do not.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many cars carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it is when the filler is not next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Stoke-On-Trent? Ask whoever drove the vehicle last before you set off, 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.
- Not in a rush on the side of Light Oaks Avenue, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the car on.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Before you start your car, close the cap and look again that your diesel cap was never opened off.
Discover during the second or third step that the bottle went in the diesel tank? That's where you stop. Do not go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Light Oaks?
Do not start the engine: that's how the short order of things starts. The fuel pump starts on many diesels the moment your ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Diluting it with extra diesel won't work, since AdBlue settles to the bottom instead of mixing — and that's where your fuel is pulled from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it's the Shell or the Esso, ask the attendants to help roll the vehicle away from the petrol pump. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway in Light Oaks.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. Light Oaks sits under 10 miles from the M6; on it, take the first junction. Mileage counts — a short hop across Light Oaks is a smaller job than heading under 3 miles towards Stoke-on-Trent — so say about how far it went.
Light Oaks: what happens when our engineers get there
Wherever the car came to rest, whether by Hillside Primary School, near Moorlands Village Hall or on your own drive, our van comes to it. The replies determine the work and the price, so we ask what got in, about how much, and whether it's run. No one sets off until you've heard our price by phone.
Then your tank is drained and the fuel system flushed thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more here than with petrol. Once the filter has been flushed — or replaced, where required — clean diesel is added, and then your vehicle gets tested. The motor is started next and checked to make sure it runs correctly, all before we leave.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once our technicians get there, as long as your engine hasn't run — and the pumps we use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to check yours.
About Light Oaks itself
Light Oaks is a suburban area situated near Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, with a mix of detached housing and local amenities. Light Oaks sits at an elevation of 221 metres, overlooking the surrounding countryside. Light Oaks is close to nearby places such as Jack Hayes, Baddeley Edge, and Kerry Hill, and is about 2.8 miles from Stoke-on-Trent city centre.
AdBlue drains round Light Oaks, and Staffordshire beyond
Throughout ST postcodes, the vans covering Light Oaks — a residential suburb — work the surrounding locations too, Kerry Hill and Baddeley Edge among them. A postcode starting ST2 7 gets our van to you fastest.
Shifting the vehicle is not needed. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to St. Philip and St. James, a lay-by on the way to Greenway Hall Golf Club, a drive. Awkward to pin down, like the back of St. Chad's Church? By a county line? Asking beats assuming, and so ring.
The short version for Light Oaks drivers
Pour no AdBlue till you have read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Leave the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, throughout Staffordshire.