AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Over: How It Occurs and How to Avoid It
Leave your motor and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. In Over, finding it before your engine turns usually leaves a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Plenty of modern diesels around Hebden Green, as well as Over, carry on two fluids; your motor takes just the diesel. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, and there a spray treats the gas.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of vehicles 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 pump, the diesel side gets filled all the time. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. It's in the gap that the error lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Over: how it occurs
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things lining up at once.
On a driveway off Pentland Close before work, or in the car park at George and Dragon heading home: that's where the rushed top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car warns you, and once it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the pour after it has started. Town Fields or the heart of Over: it is the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Check these first, at a forecourt in Over or a drive out in Ways Green. A few seconds, that's all.
- Position misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue caps are often blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally don't.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of cars say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Winsford, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
Anywhere in Cheshire the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Mount Pleasant Drive, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park then switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, yes, but it works.
- The two behind one flap? Then confirm the lid on the diesel filler stays shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Over already?
Don't start the motor: that's how the short order of things begins. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the car on. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
Ask the attendants to help roll your car clear of the petrol pump if you're at a forecourt — the Shell, the E. White Solid Fuels or anywhere else. Your own drive around Over is the place it should stay.
Already started? Pull over when it is safe, then switch off. The next exit is the place to leave if you are on the M6, under 10 miles from Over. A short hop across Over is a smaller job than a run towards Chester, under 15 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival in Over, and what happens next
Outside Over Hall Community School, close to War Memorial Saxon Cross or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, we come to it. The replies decide the work and the quote, and so we ask what went in, about how much, and whether it has run. Nobody sets off before you have heard our quote by phone.
Draining your tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the fuel system. With AdBlue that counts 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. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. After that our technicians start the car and check it runs properly before we go.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor has not run take roughly half an hour after our engineers arrive. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Over, briefly
Over is a suburban area in Cheshire, situated inland at an elevation of around 60 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type. Over lies approximately 14 miles from Chester and is part of the wider North West region of England. Over is close to nearby places such as Town Fields, Winsford, and Littler, and has a population of around 6560 residents.
AdBlue drains about Over, and Cheshire beyond
As a residential suburb, Over has the same vans as nearby places — Winsford, Littler — right across CW postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting CW7 1.
There's no need to shift the car. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street close to Church of Saint John the Evangelist, a lay-by on the way to Over Recreation Ground, a driveway. Tricky to explain, like the back of New Life Pentecostal Church? By a county line? Asking beats assuming, and so ring.
Over drivers: the short version
First, the cap; after that, the pour. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Keep the car off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Cheshire.