Rudheath: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Leave your motor and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain and a thorough flush, done just where the vehicle sits around Rudheath, is normally what it takes if caught before your motor runs. The remainder of this page covers why it occurs and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Plenty of newer diesels around Northwich, as well as Rudheath, run on two liquids; the engine gets just your diesel. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler on every tank. Many of cars have a single flap for both, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Topping up your diesel side at the petrol pump happens constantly. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. It's in that gap that the mistake lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Rudheath: how it happens
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the car, and running dry means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Gadbrook Road, or outside The Broken Cross on the way home that evening.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Lastly, the bottle goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in as readily, and once the pour starts, nothing halts it. Higher Shurlach or the middle of Rudheath: it is the same few seconds either way.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Be it a Rudheath forecourt or a driveway out in Lostock Green, take a few seconds over these before any is poured in.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of cars carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Can't see it beside your diesel inlet? Then check beneath the bonnet or in your boot — the owner's manual will say which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Northwich, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
The day the light comes on, wherever across Cheshire, use this routine.
- Stop somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Porter Drive.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- The two under one flap? Then make sure the cap on the diesel side is still closed before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Never go on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Rudheath?
Brief order, then. First: your motor remains unstarted. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition goes on — and so leave it off. Topping up with diesel will not dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of your tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
Ask the attendants to help roll the car clear of the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Texaco, the Tesco or somewhere else. On your own drive in Rudheath? So the vehicle remains where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the engine has already run. The next junction means where to leave if you are on the M6, under 5 miles from Rudheath. Distance matters — a short hop across Rudheath is a smaller job than heading under 25 miles towards Chester — so say roughly how far it went.
Rudheath: what happens when our technicians get there
Our van comes to your car wherever it stopped — your own driveway, near Shipbrook Road United Methodist Church, or outside Rudheath Primary Academy and Nursery. Our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run, because those replies determine the work and our quote. That price comes over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Then that tank is drained and your system flushed thoroughly. 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. Once the fuel filter has been flushed — or replaced, if needed — fresh diesel is added, and then your car is tested. Before leaving, we start the car and confirm that it's running smoothly.
If the motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, have a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Rudheath and where it is
Rudheath is a village in Cheshire, situated on the riverside at a low elevation of around 25 metres. Rudheath lies near the city of Chester, approximately 17 miles to the south west, and is surrounded by smaller settlements like Higher Shurlach and Leftwich. Rudheath has a population of around 3542 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Rudheath is located in the North West region of England, about 156 miles from London.
AdBlue drains about Rudheath, and Cheshire beyond
Throughout CW postcodes, our vans covering Rudheath — a village — work the nearby spots too, Leftwich and Broken Cross included. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting CW9 7.
No need to move your car. The drain happens on the spot, whether a driveway, a street by Rudheath Lesiure Centre, or a layby towards Gadbrook Park. Guessing won't help at the back of cemetery chapel, close to a border, or somewhere hard to pin down; ring and check.
For Rudheath motorists, the short version
Pour no AdBlue until you've read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Leave it switched off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Cheshire.