Sandy Lane: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Keep the engine and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before your motor runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Sandy Lane. The remainder of this page explains why it happens and how to ensure it does not — handy if you're reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Plenty of newer diesels in Knolton, as well as Sandy Lane, run on two fluids; your motor takes only the diesel. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank has a filler of its own. 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. Filling the diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. Much less commonly, the AdBlue side is filled — normally from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
Sandy Lane: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
Haste follows from the warning. The vehicle warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off A539, or heading home in the car park outside the pub in the village.
The old car's filler is where your hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That is a second factor: a new car.
A spouted bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, after started, keeps on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Sandy Lane or out in Penley.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Coptiviney or a forecourt in Sandy Lane, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Position can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps are often blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- Many vehicles give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on many vehicles. Look for it.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Ruabon, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Wherever across Wrexham the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Red Hall Lane, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park then switch off properly.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, yes, yet it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Finish when the tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip slowly using its own spout.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Spot at stage two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? Then stop right there. Skip stage five altogether.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Sandy Lane already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your motor. Keep the ignition off too, because on many diesels switching it on alone runs your pump. Diluting it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom rather than mixing — and that's where the fuel is pulled from.
At a forecourt — Texaco, another forecourt nearby or another — the staff will normally help push the car away, if you ask. If you are on your own drive in Sandy Lane, leave the car where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. The next exit means the place to come off if you are on the M53, under 25 miles from Sandy Lane. Distance matters — a quick hop across Sandy Lane is a smaller job than driving under 10 miles to Wrexham — so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival around Sandy Lane, and what takes place next
Outside Ellesmere Primary School, close to Penley Village Hall or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. The replies settle the work and our price, so we ask what went in, about how much, and if it's run. Nobody sets off before you have had the quote by phone.
Draining that tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the fuel system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more here than with petrol. The filter flushed or, if needed, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a check of your vehicle. The motor is started next and tested to confirm it runs properly, all before our engineers leave.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor has not run take about half an hour once we are there. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Sandy Lane
Sandy Lane is a small hamlet in Wrexham, situated inland at an elevation of 43 metres, and is located approximately 7.8 miles from the city of Wrexham. Sandy Lane is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, and is surrounded by other small settlements such as Penley and Lightwood Green. Sandy Lane sits within a wider landscape of rolling countryside and agricultural land, typical of the Welsh borders. Sandy Lane is a relatively small community, with a population of around 575 people.
AdBlue drains around Sandy Lane and across Wrexham
Lightwood Green and Park Lane are among the towns around Sandy Lane, a rural hamlet, that the same vans cover, throughout LL postcodes. Quote a postcode that starts LL13 0, and the van gets there fastest.
Moving the vehicle isn't needed. Wherever it sits — beside St Mary Magdalene, on a lay-by en route to Black Wood, on a drive — that's where it is emptied. Guessing doesn't help behind Overton Methodist Church, on a border, or somewhere hard to describe; ring and check.
The short version for Sandy Lane drivers
Always, the cap; after that, the pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it waits, anywhere across Wrexham.