Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Northop Hall: Why It Happens
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, done just where your car stands in Northop Hall, is normally all it takes if caught before your engine runs. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page explains the why it takes place and the how to prevent it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many current diesels on the roads around Northop Hall and New Brighton carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank comes with a filler of its own. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have the two side by side behind one flap. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Far less frequently, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. It's in that gap that the slip happens.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur in Northop Hall?
It's hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a driveway off The Ridgeway before work, or in the car park outside The Top Monkey heading home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car warns you, and once it's gone, limp mode kicks in.
Next, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — since a hire car, a new motor or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
Nothing halts the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Northop Hall or out in Ewloe Green.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Northop Hall forecourt or a drive out in Soughton, spend a few seconds over these before any goes in.
- Position misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally don't.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask when you pick up a hire car or fleet car — at Shotton's car park, say — rather than once the light appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
When the light goes on, anywhere around Flintshire, follow this routine.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Village Road.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — once you have located the filler and read it.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave it on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the car, close the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap never opened off.
Discover during the second or third step that the bottle went in the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Never go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Northop Hall already?
Don't start the motor: that's how the short order of things starts. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels as soon as the ignition is switched on — so keep it off. Diluting it with extra diesel won't work, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom rather than mixing — and that is where your fuel is sucked from.
At a forecourt — Shell, another forecourt nearby or any other — the attendants will normally help roll the vehicle away, if you ask. If you are on your own drive in Northop Hall, leave the vehicle where it stands.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. The next junction means the place to leave if you are on the M56, under 10 miles from Northop Hall. A short hop across Northop Hall is a smaller job than a run towards Chester, under 10 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Northop Hall: what occurs when our technicians arrive
Outside Bishop Wilson Church of England Primary School, close to Northop Hall Cricket Club or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our technicians come to it. Both the work and the quote rest on three replies — what fluid, what amount, and if it has run — so we ask. You get that quote by phone, before anyone sets off.
After that: a drain, then a full flush of the entire system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. Once the filter is cleaned — or replaced, if needed — clean diesel is added, and finally your vehicle gets tested. After that our engineers fire it up and check it runs correctly before we go.
Using pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor hasn't run take roughly half an hour after we arrive. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, take a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Northop Hall and where it is
Northop Hall is a village in Flintshire, situated near the coast and approximately 111 metres above sea level. Northop Hall lies close to the English border, about 8.5 miles from Chester and 171.5 miles from London. Northop Hall is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock and is surrounded by nearby places such as Ewloe Green and Northop. Northop Hall has a population of around 1246 residents.
AdBlue drains around Northop Hall and across Flintshire
Northop and Alltami are among the places around Northop Hall, a coastal village, that the same vans cover, throughout CH postcodes. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting CH7 6.
There's no need to shift the vehicle. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Castell Ewloe, a lay-by on the way to Wared Wood, a drive. Guessing doesn't help behind Soughton Hall, on a border, or anywhere awkward to pin down; phone and check.
The short version for Northop Hall people
Before you tip, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it sits, anywhere around Flintshire.