Newborough: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then put this page down for now, keep your ignition and motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, done just where the car sits in Newborough, is usually what it takes when caught before the engine runs. Here in advance? Then the rest covers why it comes about and how to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds the motor — yet plenty of modern diesels seen around Newborough and Hoar Cross hold a second liquid too. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust stream and cleans it.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the layout on many vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in the boot instead. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank take place around Newborough?
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the car, and running out means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Elton Close, perhaps outside the pub in the village on the way home that evening.
Then your car is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing halts 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. Whether it happens in Holt Hill or the middle of Newborough, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A few seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Far Hoarcross or a forecourt in Newborough.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Many motors give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says where it lives when your filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Uttoxeter, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
Anywhere in Staffordshire the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Back Lane, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park then switch off properly.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap works — after you've located the filler and read the cap.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, shut the cap and check a second time that the diesel cap was never came off.
Discover during the second or third step that the bottle went in the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Never carry on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Newborough?
Brief order, then. First: the engine remains unstarted. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the car on. Diluting it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of blending — and that's where the fuel is sucked from.
At a forecourt — Shell, Texaco or any other — the staff will normally help push the vehicle clear, if you ask. Your own driveway in Newborough is the place it stays.
When the motor has run already, stop safely and switch the vehicle off. Newborough lies under 15 miles from the M6 Toll; there, take the next exit. A short hop across Newborough is a smaller job than a run towards Lichfield, under 15 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
What occurs when our engineers turn up in Newborough
Wherever your car came to rest, whether by Needwood CofE Primary School, near All Saints or on your own drive, the van comes to it. Our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, since the replies decide the work and our quote. During the call itself, you hear the quote — ahead of anything else.
Emptying that tank comes next, then a full flush of the fuel system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. The filter cleaned or, where it must be, swapped; fresh diesel in; and then a check of the vehicle. The engine is fired up next and checked to be sure it runs correctly, all before our technicians go.
Unrun vehicles mostly need a half-hour job after the moment we arrive. The equipment is safe on a live filling station, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. While we travel, have a look at your insurance documents; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Newborough itself
Newborough is a small village in Staffordshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 106 metres. Newborough lies approximately 10 miles from Lichfield and 115 miles from London, with nearby places including Holt Hill and Newchurch. Newborough has a population of around 501 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Newborough remains a quiet residential community with a rural character.
Newborough and Staffordshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout DE postcodes, the vans covering Newborough — a village — work the surrounding locations too, Newchurch and Newborough End included. Quickest of all: give a DE13 8 postcode to the van.
The vehicle does not need to shift. Draining takes place right there, whether a drive, a street near The Sanctuary, or a layby on the way to Chantry Wood. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of The Church of the Holy Angels.
The short version for Newborough motorists
Before you pour, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere in Staffordshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway — and so leave the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103.