Sowcar: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Leave your engine and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain plus a thorough flush, done right where your vehicle stands around Sowcar, is usually what it takes if found before the engine runs. Not happened yet? Below, the page explains the why it occurs and the ways to avoid it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds the engine — yet many current diesels driven about Sowcar and Clark Green hold a second liquid too. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to clean them, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the arrangement on a lot of motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less often, usually from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
Sowcar: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things lining up at once.
On a drive off Ingersley Road before work, or in the car park at Poacher's Inn heading home: that's where the rushed top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle warns you, and once it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have 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. Bollington or the middle of Sowcar: it takes the same few seconds either way.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Whether a Sowcar forecourt or a driveway out in Rainowlow, spend a few seconds on these before any is poured in.
- Check the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue ones are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally are not.
- On plenty of motors, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says which it is when your filler is not next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check as you collect a hire car or company car — from Prestbury's car park, perhaps — not once the warning appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
On the day the light appears — anywhere you are across Cheshire — a routine to follow.
- Not in a rush on the side of Foxglove Close, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park then switch off properly.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. When the two sit under a flap, confirm it's closed before lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Step five stays off limits.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Sowcar?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your motor. The fuel pump starts on many diesels as soon as the ignition is switched on — and so leave it off. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
On a forecourt — Shell, Tesco or any other — the staff will normally help push the vehicle away, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive around Sowcar.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Sowcar lies under 10 miles from the Roscoe's Spur; on it, use the first exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Manchester, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Sowcar.
Sowcar: what happens when we turn up
Our engineers come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Bollington St John's CofE Primary School, close to Old horse trough or on your own drive. Those replies settle this work and the price, so our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run. That price comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Next: draining, then a full flush of the whole system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. The filter cleaned or, if it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; then a test of your car. The engine is fired up next and checked to confirm it runs properly, all before our engineers go.
Unstarted cars mostly need a half-hour job from arrival. The equipment is fine on a busy filling station, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It is worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Sowcar
Sowcar is a suburban area in Cheshire, situated on the riverside with nearby towns including Bollington and Pott Shrigley. Sowcar sits at an elevation of 164 metres, with terraced housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Sowcar is located near the Peak District National Park, with the city of Manchester approximately 14 miles away. Sowcar has a population of around 2628 residents.
Sowcar and Cheshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Over SK postcodes, our teams covering Sowcar — a residential suburb — work the surrounding locations too, Pott Shrigley and Kerridge among them. A postcode starting SK10 5 gets our van to you fastest.
There's no need to shift the car. The drain happens right there, be it a drive, a street near Ingersley Clough Mill, or a lay-by towards Bollington Cenotaph. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Bollington Cenotaph.
The short version for Sowcar people
Pour no AdBlue till you have read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across Cheshire.