Packmoor: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave your motor and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Caught before the engine runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Packmoor. Reading in advance? In that case the rest explains how it happens and how to prevent it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many newer diesels around Oxford, like those in Packmoor, carry on two fluids; your motor takes just your diesel. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, and there a spray cleans the fumes.
Different tanks, different fillers. 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 pump, your diesel side is topped up constantly. The AdBlue side is topped up far less frequently, normally from a bottle, and usually by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Packmoor: how it takes place
It's hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the vehicle, and letting it run out means limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Lorraine Street, perhaps at Brindleys Lock on the way home that evening.
Then the vehicle is new. A hire car, a new motor 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. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Packmoor or out in Newchapel.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Harriseahead or a forecourt in Packmoor.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it instead of going by position.
- Many vehicles give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows which it lives when your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Kidsgrove? Ask whoever drove the vehicle last before leaving, not when the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
For the day the warning comes on — anywhere you are in Staffordshire — a simple routine to follow.
- Switch off after you park — level ground, engine stopped, and never rushed beside Turnhurst Road on the verge.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you have found your filler and read it.
- The diesel cap remains on. When the two sit under a flap, confirm it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the car, close the cap and check a second time that the diesel cap was never opened off.
Discover at the second or third step that AdBlue went in the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Skip stage five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Packmoor?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the motor. The fuel pump starts on many diesels the moment your ignition goes on — and so keep it off. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
The staff at Murco Petroleum, Texaco or any forecourt will usually help pushing your car away if you ask. Your own drive around Packmoor is where it stays.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Leave the M6 — under 10 miles out of Packmoor — at the next exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Stoke-on-Trent, under 5 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Packmoor.
When our engineers arrive in Packmoor, what happens?
The van comes to your car anywhere it stopped — your own drive, beside St James the Apostle, or outside Packmoor Ormiston Academy. The replies determine this work and our quote, and so our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and if it has run. During the phone call itself, you hear the quote — ahead of dispatch.
After that: draining, then a full flush of the entire system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes out by itself. Hence it counts more. The filter flushed or, where it must be, swapped; fresh diesel in; and then a check of the car. Before we leave, our engineers start the car and confirm that it is running correctly.
With pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor hasn't run take about half an hour once our engineers are there. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Packmoor and where it is
Packmoor is a suburban area situated in Staffordshire, approximately 4.5 miles from Stoke-on-Trent, and is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock. Packmoor sits at an elevation of 209 metres, in a region of inland Staffordshire that is relatively close to the Potteries conurbation. Packmoor is near to other local places such as Newchapel, Stadmorslow, and Turnhurst, and is about 139.8 miles from London. Packmoor has a population of around 2433 residents.
AdBlue drains across Staffordshire, Packmoor included
As a residential suburb, Packmoor has the same vans as surrounding places — Stadmorslow, Turnhurst — all the way across ST postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting ST7 4.
The car doesn't need to move. We drain it where it is — a side street near St Michael's, a lay-by on the way to Turnhurst Jubilee Woods, a driveway. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Gateway Methodist Church.
The short version for Packmoor people
Before you tip, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere across Staffordshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — so leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103.