Talke: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Stop here for a moment when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Talke. The remainder of this page covers why it takes place and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Not one fluid but two: that's what many modern diesels near Talke and Butt Lane carry, with diesel for the engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas and cleans it.
Each 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 your boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up constantly. Seldom topped up, AdBlue normally goes in from a bottle, tipped by a driver who has to stop and think what filler to use. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs in Talke
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a driveway off Merelake Road before work, or in the car park outside Swan Inn heading home: that's where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car warns you, and once it's gone, limp mode follows.
New-to-you vehicles are second, as well. Hire cars, new cars and company cars place their fillers differently, and habit goes for the cap used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, after started, keeps on. Coalpit Hill or the heart of Talke: it is the same few seconds either way.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Woodshutts or a forecourt around Talke.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- The size. On plenty of motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the flap and check for a label — many cars show what belongs in which filler just there.
- The handbook shows where it lives when your filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Kidsgrove, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Anywhere across Staffordshire the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Swan Bank.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It seems daft. It works.
- The diesel cap stays on. When the two share a flap, make sure it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Before starting the vehicle, close the cap and look again that the diesel cap never came off.
Find during the second or third stage that the bottle went in the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Never go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Talke?
Don't start your motor: that's how the short order of things begins. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help roll the vehicle clear of the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Tesco, the Shell or anywhere else. At home in Talke? So the vehicle stays put.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the engine has already run. On the M6, under 3 miles from Talke, that means the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Talke is smaller a job than a run of under 10 miles towards Stoke-on-Trent, and so tell us.
When our technicians turn up around Talke, what happens?
Our engineers come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside St Saviour's CofE Academy, close to St. Martins Parish Church or on your own driveway. Both the work and our price rest on three replies — which liquid, what quantity, and whether it's run — so our engineers ask. No one heads out until you've had our price over the phone.
Emptying your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of your system. More than with petrol, it matters here: the crystals form, certain metals corrode, and nothing washes away unaided, however long it sits. Testing is at the end: before that, fresh diesel is added, and the filter is cleaned or replaced if necessary. The motor is fired up next and tested to be sure it runs properly, all before our technicians go.
If your engine has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. While we travel, have a look at your policy; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Talke and where it is
Talke is a village in Staffordshire, situated inland at an elevation of 196 metres, approximately 5 miles from Stoke-on-Trent. Talke has a population of around 1830 people, with predominantly semi-detached housing. Talke is located near other small settlements such as Coalpit Hill and Hollins, and is about 141 miles northwest of London. Talke sits in a region of Staffordshire that has been shaped by its industrial heritage and rural landscape.
AdBlue drains around Talke, and Staffordshire beyond
As a rural village, Talke shares its vans nearby areas — Hollins, Talke Pits — all the way through ST postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Give a postcode that starts ST7 1, and the van gets there quickest.
No need to shift the vehicle. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Clough Hall Recreation Ground, a side street near Affinity Staffordshire: our technicians drain the car where it stands. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of M&S Outlet.
For Talke people, the short version
Tip nothing till you've read the cap. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it is, wherever around Staffordshire: switch it off and call 0333 366 0103.