Northwood: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Pause here for a moment when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out right where your vehicle stands in Northwood, is usually what it takes if found before your engine runs. Nothing happened yet? Below, the rest of the page explains the reasons it takes place and the ways to avoid it altogether.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Many modern diesels on the roads round Northwood and Joiners Square 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 has its own filler. Many of motors have a single flap for the two, whereas others move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled constantly. The AdBlue side is filled far less frequently, normally from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. The error lives in that gap.
Northwood: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Haste comes from the warning. The vehicle tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a drive off Northwood Park Road, or heading home in the car park outside Holly Bush.
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 the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part 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. It's a few seconds, be it out in Hanley or right in the heart of Northwood.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A few seconds is all these take — so check them before you pour anything, on a drive in Bucknall or a forecourt in Northwood.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- On plenty of vehicles, the size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Open the flap and look for a label — plenty of motors mark what belongs in which filler right there.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Stoke-On-Trent, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
When the light comes on, wherever around Staffordshire, follow this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Eastbourne Road.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you've found the filler and read it.
- The diesel cap stays on. When both share a flap, confirm it's closed before the bottle comes up.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then look again — making sure your diesel cap stayed shut throughout. Only then, start your car.
Find at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop right there. Stage five is off limits.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Northwood?
Don't start the motor: that's how the short order of things begins. The fuel pump starts on many diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — so leave it off. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
At a forecourt — Esso, Gulf or another — the staff will usually help roll the vehicle clear, if you ask. Your own driveway in Northwood is the place it stays.
Already run? Pull over once it is sensible, then switch off. On the M6, under 5 miles from Northwood, that means the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Northwood is smaller a job than a run of under a mile to Stoke-on-Trent, and so say.
Northwood: what happens when our engineers turn up
Our engineers come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Co-op Academy Northwood, near Northwood Sports Centre or on your own drive. Our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and if it has run, since the replies determine the work and the quote. That quote comes on the call, before any van leaves.
Then the tank is drained and the system rinsed thoroughly. Much more than with petrol, it matters here: the crystals build up, certain metals corrode, and nothing washes out unaided, however long it sits. Once the fuel filter has been flushed — or replaced, where required — fresh diesel is added, and then the vehicle is tested. The motor is fired up next and checked to confirm it runs correctly, all before our engineers leave.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor hasn't run take roughly half an hour after our technicians are there. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. It is worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Northwood itself
Northwood is a suburban area located on the outskirts of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England, with a riverside setting and an elevation of around 156 metres. Northwood sits close to the city centre, being only 0.6 miles away from Stoke-on-Trent, and is near other nearby places such as Hanley and Birches Head. Northwood has a population of approximately 8145 people and is characterised by predominantly terraced housing. Northwood is situated in the West Midlands region, about 135.8 miles northwest of London.
AdBlue drains across Staffordshire, Northwood included
Over ST postcodes, the vans that cover Northwood — a residential suburb — work the nearby places too, Birches Head and Stoke-on-Trent among them. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting ST1 6.
Shifting the vehicle is not needed. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Our Lady & St. Michael, a lay-by on the way to Northwood Park, a driveway. Guessing doesn't help behind Elim Pentecostal Church, close to a border, or anywhere awkward to describe; phone and check.
The short version for Northwood drivers
Tip nothing until you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it waits, anywhere around Staffordshire.