Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Red Street: Why It Happens
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then put this page down for now, keep the ignition and motor off, then ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, done just where the car sits in Red Street, is normally all it takes if found before the motor runs. Reading in advance? Then the rest explains how it happens and how to prevent it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Not one liquid but two: that's what plenty of modern diesels around Red Street and Butters Green carry, with diesel feeding your engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the layout on a lot of cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Diesel goes in on every filling station call-out, week in, week out. Seldom topped up, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think which filler it needs. The error lives in that gap.
Red Street: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Crofters Court before work, or in the car park outside The Jolly Potters on the way home.
Unfamiliar motors are next, too. Rentals, new vehicles and company vehicles place their fillers in new places, and the hand goes for the cap used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Crackley or the middle of Red Street: it takes the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Chesterton or a forecourt in Red Street, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Check the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally aren't.
- On plenty of motors, size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Open the flap and look for a label — plenty of vehicles mark what belongs in each filler right there.
- The handbook says which it is if your filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver knows. Check as you collect a hire car or fleet car — at Longport's car park, say — rather than when the warning appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Staffordshire that is.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time in hand — not rushing on the side of Talke Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Finish once that tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, tip gently using its built-in spout.
- Shut the cap, then check once more — confirm your diesel cap stayed closed throughout. After that, start your car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Skip step five altogether.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Red Street already?
Don't start the motor: that is how the short order of things starts. Keep the ignition off too, since on many diesels switching it on by itself starts the fuel pump. Diluting it with extra diesel fails, because AdBlue settles to the bottom instead of blending — and that's where your fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Shell, Esso or another — the attendants will usually help roll your car away, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around Red Street.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. Leave the M6 — under 5 miles out of Red Street — at the first exit. Distance counts — a short hop across Red Street is a smaller job than driving under 5 miles towards Stoke-on-Trent — so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival around Red Street, and what occurs next
Our technicians come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside St Chad's CofE (C) Primary School, close to Church of St.Chad, Red Street or on your own drive. Our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it's run, because those replies decide this work and the price. You get that price on the phone, before anybody heads out.
Then that tank is emptied and your system rinsed thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and none of it washes away by itself. That is why it counts more. A test is at the end: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is cleaned or changed if necessary. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once we arrive, provided your engine hasn't run — and the pumps we use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet at night beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. While we travel, take a look at your policy; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Red Street
Red Street is a suburban area in Staffordshire, situated approximately 4.2 miles from Stoke-on-Trent, and is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock. Red Street sits inland, at an elevation of around 219 metres, and is close to nearby places such as Crackley and Talke Pits. Red Street is part of the larger West Midlands region, and is located about 139.9 miles from London. Red Street has a population of around 1927 residents.
Red Street and Staffordshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Talke Pits and Springwood are among the towns around Red Street, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, over ST postcodes. Fastest of all: quote a ST5 7 postcode for our van.
Moving your car isn't necessary. We drain it where it is — a side street near Wedgwood's Monument, a lay-by on the way to Oldhill Wood, a driveway. Tricky to explain, like the back of Talke Pits Village Hall? Close to a county line? Checking is better than assuming, and so ring.
Red Street drivers: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere across Staffordshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — and so leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.