Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Overpool
Pause reading for a moment when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Around Overpool, finding it before your engine runs usually means a drain and a full flush on the spot. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
No single liquid but two: that's what many modern diesels around Overpool and Sutton Green run, with diesel feeding your engine. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to fresh them, from its own tank.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up constantly. The AdBlue side is topped up far less frequently, usually from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Overpool: how it occurs
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Forest Road before work, or in the car park outside The Wheatsheaf on the way home.
The old car's filler is where your hand goes — yet a hire car, a new motor or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That's the second factor: a strange car.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip after it has started. Little Sutton or the middle of Overpool: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A few seconds is all these take — so check them before you tip anything, on a drive in Whitby or a forecourt around Overpool.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- On plenty of cars, size gives it away: AdBlue gets 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 shows which it is when the filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check when you collect a hire car or fleet car — at the nearest station's car park, say — not once the light appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Cheshire that is.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, motor off, and never rushed beside Netherpool Road at the roadside.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — once you have found your filler and read the cap.
- The diesel cap stays on. When the two sit under a flap, confirm it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Discover during the second or third step that the bottle went into the diesel tank? That's where you stop. Step five is off limits.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Overpool already?
Don't start your engine: that is how the short order of things begins. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch it on. Filling up with diesel won't dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
The attendants at Texaco, Shell or another forecourt will usually help to push the vehicle clear if asked. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Overpool.
Already run? Pull over once it's sensible, then switch off. The next exit is where to leave when you are on the M53, under a mile from Overpool. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Overpool makes a smaller job than heading under 10 miles towards Chester — so say roughly how far it went.
When we arrive in Overpool, what occurs?
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Rivacre Valley Primary School, close to Ranger / Visitor Centre or on your own driveway. Both the work and the quote depend on three answers — which fluid, what quantity, and whether it has run — so we ask. Nobody sets off until you've heard the quote by phone.
Then your tank is drained and the system flushed thoroughly. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes out by itself. That is why it matters more. Once the filter has been flushed — or renewed, where needed — clean diesel is added, and finally the vehicle is tested. We do not go until it has been started and is running smoothly.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor hasn't run need roughly half an hour once we are there. The insurer will ask for an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours once this job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Overpool and where it is
Overpool is a suburban area in Cheshire, situated near the coast and approximately 7 miles from Chester. Overpool has a relatively low elevation of 32 metres and is located near other suburban areas such as Little Sutton and Great Sutton. Overpool is characterized by its predominant semi-detached housing stock, which is typical of many suburban areas in the North West of England. Overpool is also relatively far from London, at a distance of around 170 miles.
AdBlue drains in Overpool and across Cheshire
Being a residential suburb, Overpool shares its vans nearby places — Ellesmere Port, Great Sutton — all the way through CH postcodes and the wider area around them. Give a postcode that starts CH66 1, and our van arrives fastest.
The car stays put. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Clayhill Wood, a side street near Boulder Hut: our technicians drain the vehicle where it stands. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of St Saviours Church, ring and ask instead of assuming.
For Overpool motorists, the short version
Pour nothing until you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere in Cheshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — so leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.