AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Oswestry: How It Occurs and How to Avoid It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and your ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. In Oswestry, finding it before the motor turns normally leaves a drain and a full flush on the spot. The rest of this page explains why it happens and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you are reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Diesel feeds your motor — yet many modern diesels driven about Oswestry and Pentre-clawdd hold a second fluid too. The exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the fumes to fresh it, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, tipped by a driver who must stop and think which filler to use. That gap is where the slip lives.
Oswestry: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things lining up together.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the vehicle, and running dry means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Chapel Street, perhaps at The George on the way home that evening.
Then, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old vehicle — because a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
Third, the spout goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in just as easily, and once the pour begins, no part stops it. Whether it occurs in Morda or the middle of Oswestry, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Whether a Oswestry forecourt or a drive over in Pant-glas, take a couple of seconds over these before any is poured in.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue ones are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- On plenty of vehicles, size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says where it is if the filler is not next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver will know. Ask as you collect a rental or fleet car — at Gobowen's car park, perhaps — rather than once the light appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
The day the light comes on, anywhere around Shropshire, use this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Arthur Street.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you've found your filler and read the cap.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Stop once your tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; before that, pour slowly through the built-in spout.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and check a second time that your diesel cap never opened off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Stage five stays out.
Oswestry: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Don't start your motor: that's how the short order of things begins. Keep the ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels it alone starts your fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it is the BP or the Shell, ask the attendants to help roll your car clear of the petrol pump. At home around Oswestry? Then the car remains where it is.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. The next junction means the place to leave when you are on the M54, under 25 miles from Oswestry. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Wrexham, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Oswestry.
What occurs when we arrive around Oswestry
By Woodside Primary School, close to Christ Church or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our engineers come to it. Those replies settle the work and the price, and so our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it's run. That price comes on the call, before any van leaves.
Your system is then rinsed thoroughly, once that tank is cleared. 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. Testing is at the end: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and your filter is flushed or changed as needed. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once our technicians get there, as long as the engine hasn't run — and the pumps we use are fine on a live forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents your insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. It's worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Oswestry, for a moment
Oswestry is a town in north Shropshire, situated in the English West Midlands region, with a population of around 15811 people. Oswestry sits at an elevation of 138 metres, approximately 13 miles from Wrexham and 155 miles from London, in a landscape of rolling hills and surrounding villages like Morda and Weston. Oswestry has a mix of housing types, with semi-detached homes being particularly prevalent. Oswestry is close to the Welsh border, near the small settlements of Coed y Go.
Oswestry and Shropshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Weston and Coed y Go are among the places near Oswestry, a town, that the same vans cover, over SY postcodes. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting SY11 1.
Moving the vehicle isn't necessary. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Cae Glas Park, a side street near Attfield Theatre: our engineers drain the vehicle where it is. Assuming doesn't help behind Oswestry Castle, on a border, or anywhere awkward to pin down; ring and ask.
For Oswestry drivers, the short version
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Shropshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — so leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103.