How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Newchapel
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and the ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. In Newchapel, catching it before the motor turns usually means a drain and a full flush where it stands. Not happened yet? Below, the page covers the why it takes place and the ways to avoid it altogether.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
No single fluid but two: that is what plenty of newer diesels near Newchapel and Whitehill carry, with diesel feeding the engine. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, and there spraying cleans the fumes.
Different tanks, different fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on many vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. Much less commonly, the AdBlue side is filled — normally from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. It's in the gap that the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place in Newchapel?
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from your car, and running dry means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off High Street, perhaps outside Brindleys Lock on the way home after work.
Then, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old motor — since a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
Lastly, the bottle goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in just as easily, and once the pour starts, nothing halts it. It's seconds, whether out in Stadmorslow or bang in the heart of Newchapel.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Newchapel forecourt or a drive out in The Rookery, spend a few seconds on these before any is poured in.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — plenty of cars show what goes in each filler right there.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Kidsgrove.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
When the light comes on, wherever across Staffordshire, use this routine.
- Stop somewhere level, motor off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of Pennyfields Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- The two behind a single flap? Then confirm the lid on your diesel filler is still shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then look again — confirm your diesel filler remained closed the whole time. After that, start the car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Don't carry on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Newchapel?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting your engine. Don't switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that 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 the tank, where your fuel is pulled from.
On a forecourt — Texaco, Murco Petroleum or any other — the attendants will usually help roll the vehicle away, if you ask. At home around Newchapel? Then the vehicle stays put.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. The next exit is where to leave when you're on the M6, under 10 miles from Newchapel. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Newchapel is less work than a run of under 10 miles to Stoke-on-Trent, and so say.
Our arrival in Newchapel, and what occurs next
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Thursfield Primary School, close to St James the Apostle or on your own driveway. Which fluid got in, the quantity, and if it ran: we ask since those replies decide the work and price. That price is given over the phone, before any van leaves.
Then that tank is drained and the system flushed thoroughly. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. After the fuel filter has been cleaned — or renewed, where required — fresh diesel goes in, and then the car gets tested. Next our technicians fire it up and make sure it runs properly before we go.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the engine has not run take roughly half an hour once our technicians are there. Your insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours once the job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. It's worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Newchapel
Newchapel is a village in Staffordshire, situated approximately 5 miles from Stoke-on-Trent, and is characterised by its semi-detached housing stock. Newchapel sits at an elevation of around 220 metres, in a rural area surrounded by nearby places such as Stadmorslow and Packmoor. Newchapel is a relatively small community, with a population of around 1311 people, and is located inland, about 140 miles northwest of London.
AdBlue drains across Staffordshire, Newchapel included
Throughout ST postcodes, the teams covering Newchapel — a rural village — work the nearby spots too, Harriseahead and Packmoor included. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting ST7 4.
Your car doesn't need to shift. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Whitehill Road Methodist Church, a lay-by on the way to Pennyfields Recreation Ground, a driveway. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Gateway Methodist Church, ring and ask instead of guessing.
The short version for Newchapel people
Tip nothing until you have read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Leave it off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Staffordshire.