AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Stone: Why It Occurs and How to Stop It
Pause reading a minute when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, carried out just where the vehicle sits in Stone, is usually all it needs when caught before the motor runs. The rest of this page covers why it takes place and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you are reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Plenty of modern diesels around Little Stoke, like those in Stone, run on two liquids; your motor takes only the diesel. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the gas to fresh it, from a separate tank.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that's the arrangement on many motors. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up your diesel side at the pump happens constantly. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. Mistakes happen in that gap between them.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Stone: how it occurs
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from your car, and running dry means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Church Street, or outside The Swan Inn on the way home that evening.
Then the car is strange. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, once begun, keeps on. Walton or the middle of Stone: it takes the same few seconds either way.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt around Stone or a driveway out in Oulton Grange. Seconds, that's all.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Plenty of cars fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park outside the nearest station? Check with whoever drove the vehicle last before you set off, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Wherever around Staffordshire the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Stafford Street.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud while unscrewing it. It seems daft. It does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Leave out step five altogether.
Stone: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Short order, then. Top of that: your engine stays unstarted. Don't switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
On a forecourt — Morrisons, Shell or another — the attendants will normally help push the car clear, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Stone.
Where the motor has run already, stop somewhere safe and turn it off. Leave the M6 — under 3 miles out of Stone — at the next exit. A short hop across Stone is a smaller job than a run towards Stoke-on-Trent, under 10 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival in Stone, and what takes place next
The van comes to your car anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside Anchor, or outside St Dominic's Catholic Primary School. Both the work and our price rest on three answers — which fluid, which quantity, and whether it's run — so our engineers ask. During the call itself, you are told the quote — ahead of anything else.
Then your tank is emptied and the system flushed thoroughly. Much more than with petrol, it matters here: crystals form, some metals corrode, and nothing clears away on its own, however long it sits. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Before we go, our technicians fire it up and confirm that it is running properly.
Using pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where the engine has not run take about half an hour once our engineers are there. Nothing upfront; you settle up on the day. At the end, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Stone itself
Stone is a town in Staffordshire, situated on the River Trent at an elevation of 92 metres, with a mix of old and new buildings along its riverside. Stone lies approximately 8 miles south of Stoke-on-Trent and 129 miles northwest of London, near the villages of Walton and Oultoncross. Stone has a population of around 14787 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Stone benefits from its location in the West Midlands region, with good transport links to nearby cities.
AdBlue drains in Stone and across Staffordshire
Being a riverside town, Stone shares its vans nearby places — Stonefield, Oultoncross — all the way through ST postcodes and the wider area beyond. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting ST15 8.
Moving the vehicle is not needed. The drain happens on the spot, be it a drive, a street near Frank Jordan Community Centre, or a layby towards Crown Meadow. Tricky to explain, like the back of Saint Michael and Saint Wulfad's? By a border? Asking beats guessing, so phone.
For Stone motorists, the short version
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Staffordshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless — so leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103.