St Helens: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Leave your motor and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. In St Helens, catching it before the motor turns normally leaves a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. The remainder of this page explains why it occurs and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Plenty of modern diesels in Pocket Nook, like those in St Helens, run on two liquids; the engine takes only the diesel. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. It is in that gap that the error happens.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens around St Helens
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
Hurry comes from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off Corporation Street, or heading home in the car park at Ice Bar.
New-to-you cars are second, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and habit goes for the cap it used on the old one.
Lastly, the bottle fits: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in just as readily, and once the tip starts, no part halts it. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of St Helens or out in Green Bank.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a St Helens forecourt or a drive over in Finger Post, spend a few seconds over these before anything is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually isn't. Read it rather than going by position.
- On plenty of cars, the size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- Cannot see it next to your diesel inlet? In that case look beneath the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook will say which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check as you collect a hire car or fleet car — from St Helens Central's car park, perhaps — not when the light appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
For the day the light comes on — wherever it is around Merseyside — a routine to use.
- Switch off after you park — flat ground, engine stopped, and never rushed beside The Landings at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave it on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the car, close the cap and check again that your diesel cap was never opened off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Don't carry on to stage five.
St Helens: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. The fuel pump starts on many diesels the moment your ignition goes on — and so leave it off. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it is the Asda or the Asda petrol station, ask the attendants to help push the car clear of the petrol pump. If you are on your own drive in St Helens, leave the vehicle where it stands.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next junction is where to leave if you're on the M62, under 5 miles from St Helens. A short hop across St Helens is a smaller job than a run towards Liverpool, under 15 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our engineers arrive around St Helens, what happens?
Outside St Mary & St Thomas CofE Primary School, close to YMCA or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, we come to it. The answers determine this work and our price, and so we ask what got in, about how much, and whether it has run. On the phone call itself, you are told our price — ahead of anything else.
Next: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that counts more here than with petrol. Filter flushed or, where it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a test of your car. We do not leave until it has been started and is running properly.
Using pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor hasn't run take about half an hour once our engineers are there. No money in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About St Helens and where it is
St Helens is a town in Merseyside, situated on the riverside in the North West of England, with a mix of terraced housing and other residential areas. St Helens sits at an elevation of 37 metres, approximately 10 miles from Liverpool and 173 miles from London. St Helens is close to nearby places such as Green Bank, Gerards Bridge, and Cowley Hill, and has a population of around 20664 people. St Helens has a distinct character shaped by its riverside setting and industrial heritage.
AdBlue drains across Merseyside, St Helens included
Throughout WA postcodes, our vans covering St Helens — a riverside town — work the surrounding places too, Cowley Hill and Gerards Bridge included. Fastest of all: give a WA10 1 postcode to our van.
Moving the vehicle isn't needed. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Friends Garden, a side street near St Helens Magistrate court: we drain it where it stands. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Ormskirk Street United Reformed Church, ring and ask rather than guessing.
In short, for St Helens motorists
Tip no AdBlue till you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere in Merseyside, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — so leave the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103.