Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Midway
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case put this page down for now, keep the ignition and engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Usually, if your engine has not run, it is drained and thoroughly flushed where your vehicle sits in Midway. Reading in advance? Then the rest explains how it happens and what to prevent it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
No single liquid but two: that's what plenty of modern diesels near Midway and Hockley run, with diesel for your engine. Its own tank holds it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, and there spraying treats the fumes.
There is a filler for each tank. Plenty of vehicles have a single flap for the two, while some put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Topping up your diesel side at the pump happens all the time. Far less commonly, the AdBlue side gets filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. Mistakes happen in that gap between the two.
Midway: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Carelessness seldom explains it. What does is three things lining up at once.
On a drive off Dickens Lane before work, or in the car park at The Kingfisher heading home: that's where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car warns you, and once it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
Then your car is strange. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the pour after it has started. Whether it takes place in Poynton or the middle of Midway, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Look at these before pouring, at a forecourt in Midway or a drive out in Skellorn Green. A few seconds, that's all.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of vehicles carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Poynton? Ask the person who drove it last before leaving, rather than once the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Cheshire that is.
- Switch off after you park — flat ground, motor stopped, and not in a rush beside Copperfield Road at the roadside.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, but it works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two sit under a flap, make sure it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Spot at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop just there. Stage five is off limits.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Midway already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your engine. Keep the ignition off as well, because on many diesels it alone starts the fuel pump. Don't 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 drawn from.
On a forecourt — Esso, BP or any other — the staff will normally help roll your car clear, if you ask. At home in Midway? So the car stays put.
Already started? Stop when it is sensible, then turn off. Midway sits under 5 miles from the M60; on it, use the first junction. A short hop across Midway is a smaller job than a run towards Manchester, under 15 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
Midway: what occurs when our technicians get there
Our van reaches your car wherever it stopped — your own driveway, beside Poynton Theatre, or outside St Paul's Catholic Primary School, A Voluntary Academy. The replies determine this work and our price, and so our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. No one heads out until you've had the quote over the phone.
Then the tank is emptied and the 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 that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. A test comes at the end: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is flushed or replaced as needed. Before we go, our technicians fire it up and confirm that it is running properly.
If the engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. The insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours once the job is done. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. While we travel, take a look at your policy; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Midway itself
Midway is a suburban area in Cheshire, situated on the riverside with an elevation of 97 metres, and is located near the cities of Manchester and the smaller towns of Poynton and Hope Green. Midway has a population of around 5521 people and is characterized by its predominant semi-detached housing. Midway is also close to other nearby places such as Wardsend, and is within a reasonable distance from major urban centres, being 10.6 miles from Manchester and 152.2 miles from London.
Midway and Cheshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Midway is a residential suburb, and our vans that cover it also work the places around it, Hope Green and Wardsend among them, across the SK postcode area. A postcode starting SK12 1 gets the van to you fastest.
Shifting the car is not necessary. Anywhere it sits — near Poynton British Legion, in a lay-by en route to Wigwam Wood, at home — that's where it is emptied. Awkward to explain, like the back of Saint Paul's? Close to a county line? Asking is better than guessing, and so phone.
Midway motorists: the short version
Pour nothing till you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere across Cheshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — and so leave it off and ring 0333 366 0103.