Middleport: 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 the motor and the ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. In Middleport, finding it before your engine runs usually leaves draining and a thorough flush on the spot. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Plenty of current diesels on the roads round Middleport and Porthill carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There is a filler on each tank. Plenty of cars share a single flap for both, while others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in that gap that the slip lives.
Middleport: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things lining up together.
On a driveway off Bulstrode Street before work, or in the car park at The White Swan heading home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low your car warns you, and once it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
Then, your hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old vehicle — because a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
No part stops the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's a few seconds, be it in Longport or right in the centre of Middleport.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Wolstanton or a forecourt around Middleport, check these. They take a few seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually is not. Read it instead of going by position.
- On plenty of vehicles, size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Open the flap and check for a label — plenty of cars show which belongs in which inlet just there.
- The handbook says which it lives when your filler is not next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Longport? Check with the person who drove it last before leaving, not when the light goes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
On the day the warning comes on — wherever you are around Staffordshire — a simple routine to follow.
- Switch off after you park — level ground, motor off, and not in a rush beside Globe Street at the roadside.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, yes, but it does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. When the two share a flap, make sure it's closed before the bottle comes up.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Don't go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Middleport?
Short list, then. First: the motor remains off. Leave your ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels switching it on alone runs the fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is sucked from.
At a forecourt — BP, another forecourt nearby or another — the attendants will usually help push the car clear, if you ask. Your own driveway around Middleport is where it stays.
Already started? Stop when it is sensible, then turn off. Leave the M6 — under 5 miles out of Middleport — at the next exit. A short hop across Middleport is a smaller job than a run towards Stoke-on-Trent, under 3 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we arrive in Middleport, what occurs?
Anywhere your car has stopped, be it outside Saint Nathaniel's Academy, near St Paul's or at home, the van comes to it. The replies settle this work and the price, and so we ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it has run. You hear that quote on the phone, before anyone heads out.
Then the tank is drained and your system purged thoroughly. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and none of that clears out by itself. Hence it counts more. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. The motor is started next and tested to confirm it runs correctly, all before our technicians go.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where your motor has not run take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. No money upfront; you settle up on the day. At the end, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Before we get there, have a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Middleport, for a moment
Middleport is a suburban area in Staffordshire, situated on the riverside near Stoke-on-Trent. Middleport has a mix of terraced housing and is located at an elevation of around 135 metres. Middleport is close to nearby places such as Longport and Burslem, and is about 2 miles from Stoke-on-Trent city centre. Middleport is part of the larger Stoke-on-Trent urban area, with London approximately 138 miles to the south.
AdBlue drains in Middleport and across Staffordshire
Being a residential suburb, Middleport shares its vans nearby areas — Longbridge Hayes, Burslem — all the way across ST postcodes and the wider area around them. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting ST6 3.
Shifting the car isn't necessary. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Middleport Park, a side street close to Trubshaw Cross: our technicians drain the car where it stands. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Middleport Pottery.
In short, for Middleport people
Pour nothing until you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere around Staffordshire.