Malpas: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Leave the motor and ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Caught before your engine runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Malpas. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels around Oldcastle Heath, as well as Malpas, carry on two fluids; the engine gets just your diesel. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to clean it, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at each forecourt call-out, week in, week out. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs in Malpas
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
On a driveway off Chester Road before work, or in the car park at Crown Inn heading home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car warns you, and if it is gone, limp mode follows.
The old car's filler is where your hand goes — but a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That's a second factor: an unfamiliar motor.
Third, the spout fits: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in as easily, and after the tip starts, no part halts it. It's seconds, whether out in Cross o th Hill or right in the centre of Malpas.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A few seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a drive in Hampton Heath or a forecourt around Malpas.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- On plenty of cars, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it is when your filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Whitchurch (Shropshire)? Check with the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, not when the light goes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
On the day the warning comes on — anywhere you are across Cheshire — a simple routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of Mercer Close, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- Leave your 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.
- Before starting your car, shut the cap and check a second time that your diesel cap never came off.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop right there. Never carry on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Malpas already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your engine. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the car on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
Ask the attendants to help roll your car clear of the petrol pump if you are at a forecourt — the Essar, the Gulf or somewhere else. Your own driveway in Malpas is the place it should stay.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. On the M53, under 15 miles from Malpas, that means the next junction. A short hop across Malpas is a smaller job than a run towards Wrexham, under 10 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
What happens when our technicians arrive in Malpas
Anywhere your car came to rest, whether by Malpas Alport Endowed Primary School, near High Street Church or at home, the van comes to it. We ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, since the replies determine the work and our quote. Nobody sets off before you've heard our price by phone.
Draining your tank comes next, followed by a full flush of your system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more here than with petrol. Once the fuel filter is cleaned — or replaced, where needed — fresh diesel goes in, and finally the car is tested. The motor is fired up next and checked to confirm it runs properly, all before we go.
Unstarted vehicles mostly mean a half-hour visit after the moment we arrive. The kit is safe on a live forecourt, and hushed enough for a driveway after dark. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. It is worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Malpas itself
Malpas is a village in Cheshire, situated inland at an elevation of 118 metres, approximately 9.7 miles from Wrexham. Malpas has a population of around 1498 people, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type. Malpas is surrounded by nearby places such as Cross o th Hill, Ebnal, and Cuddington Heath, and is located about 152.9 miles from London. Malpas remains a quiet residential community with a strong sense of local identity.
AdBlue drains across Cheshire, Malpas included
Malpas is a rural village, and the vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Ebnal and Cuddington Heath among them, across the SY postcode area. A postcode starting SY14 8 gets the van to you fastest.
Moving the car isn't necessary. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near Jubilee Hall, a lay-by on the way to The Rec, a driveway. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Malpas Castle Hill.
Malpas people: the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere across Cheshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — so leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.