AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Stadmorslow: Why It Occurs and How to Stop It
Leave your motor and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain plus a full flush, carried out right where the vehicle sits in Stadmorslow, is normally all it needs if found before your motor runs. The rest of this page covers why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't — useful if you're reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of current diesels on the roads about Stadmorslow and The Rookery carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
There is a filler for each tank. Other vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have both side by side under one flap. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. It's in that gap that the error lives.
Stadmorslow: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
It's rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a driveway off Cottonwood Grove before work, or in the car park at The Gardeners Arms heading home: that is where the hurried top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the vehicle warns you, and once it is gone, limp mode follows.
New-to-you motors come second, as well. Hire cars, new vehicles and company motors put their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
No part halts the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it happens in Wain Lee or the middle of Stadmorslow, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Packmoor or a forecourt around Stadmorslow, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually don't.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Check for it.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by the diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask when you pick up a rental or fleet car — at Kidsgrove's car park, say — not when the light appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
For the day the light comes on — wherever it is in Staffordshire — a routine to use.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Aspen Close.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, yet it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the vehicle on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, and look again — making sure the diesel filler remained shut the whole time. Only then, start the vehicle.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't carry on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Stadmorslow?
The short order of things, beginning with not starting your engine. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the vehicle on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
At a forecourt — Texaco, Murco Petroleum or any other — the staff will usually help roll your car clear, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive around Stadmorslow.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. Stadmorslow lies under 10 miles from the M6; there, use the next exit. A short hop across Stadmorslow is a smaller job than a run towards Stoke-on-Trent, under 10 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our engineers arrive in Stadmorslow, what takes place?
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Thursfield Primary School, close to St James the Apostle or on your own driveway. Both the work and the price rest on three replies — what liquid, which quantity, and whether it's run — so our engineers ask. That price is given over the phone, before any van leaves.
The fuel system is then flushed thoroughly, once that tank is drained. With AdBlue that matters 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. Testing is last: before that, clean diesel is added, and your filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. Then we fire it up and check it runs correctly before leaving.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once our technicians get there, as long as the engine has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Stadmorslow, for a moment
Stadmorslow is a locality in Staffordshire, situated inland at an elevation of 217 metres, approximately 5.3 miles from Stoke-on-Trent. Stadmorslow is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its relatively rural setting. Stadmorslow lies near other small communities such as Wain Lee, Harriseahead, and Newchapel, and is about 140.5 miles from London.
AdBlue drains around Stadmorslow, and Staffordshire beyond
Throughout ST postcodes, the vans that cover Stadmorslow — a small village — work the surrounding spots too, Newchapel and Harriseahead among them. A postcode starting ST7 4 gets the van to you fastest.
Shifting the car is not necessary. Anywhere it sits — beside Whitehill Road Methodist Church, in a layby heading to Pennyfields Recreation Ground, at home — that is where it gets drained. Awkward to pin down, like the back of Mount Pleasant Village Sign? Close to a county line? Checking beats assuming, and so phone.
For Stadmorslow drivers, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Leave the vehicle switched off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, throughout Staffordshire.