Thatto Heath: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Stop here a minute if the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Around Thatto Heath, catching it before the motor runs usually leaves a drain and a thorough flush on the spot. Not happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page explains the why it takes place and the how to avoid it for good.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
No single fluid but two: that is how many modern diesels around Thatto Heath and Ravenhead carry, with diesel for the engine. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to fresh them, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in on each forecourt call-out, week in, week out. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less regularly. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen in Thatto Heath?
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things lining up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Elephant Lane before work, or in the car park at The York on the way home.
New-to-you motors are next, as well. Hire cars, new motors and company motors place their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
Nothing stops 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. It takes a few seconds, whether out in Sutton Heath or right in the centre of Thatto Heath.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Toll Bar or a forecourt around Thatto Heath, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says which it is when your filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside the nearest station? Ask the person who drove the car last before you set off, rather than once the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
For the day the warning appears — wherever it is around Merseyside — a simple routine to use.
- Turn off once parked — flat ground, engine off, and not rushed by Dorothy Street on the verge.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It seems silly. It works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Never go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Thatto Heath?
Short list, then. Top of it: your engine stays unstarted. Do not switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Diluting it with extra diesel fails, since AdBlue settles to the bottom rather than blending — and that is where the fuel is drawn from.
The attendants at BP, Morrisons or any forecourt will normally help to push your car clear when you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive in Thatto Heath.
Already run? Stop once it's safe, then switch off. Thatto Heath lies under 3 miles from the M62; there, take the first exit. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Thatto Heath makes a smaller job than heading under 10 miles to Liverpool — so say roughly how far it went.
When we turn up around Thatto Heath, what happens?
Anywhere the vehicle has stopped, whether by Thatto Heath Community Primary School, near Thatto Heath Library or on your own drive, our van travels to it. Our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, because those answers settle the work and our price. During the phone call itself, you are told the price — before dispatch.
The system is then cleaned thoroughly, once that tank is emptied. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Filter flushed or, if needed, replaced; fresh diesel in; and then a check of the vehicle. The motor is started next and tested to be sure it runs properly, all before we head off.
If the motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. It is worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Thatto Heath
Thatto Heath is a suburban area in Merseyside, situated near the lakeside and approximately 9 miles from Liverpool. Thatto Heath has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly characterised by terraced homes. Thatto Heath sits at an elevation of around 69 metres, in a setting that is typical of the North West region's varied landscape. Thatto Heath is close to other nearby places, including Sutton Heath and Nutgrove.
AdBlue drains around Thatto Heath and across Merseyside
Throughout WA postcodes, the teams that cover Thatto Heath — a residential suburb — work the nearby spots too, Brown Edge and Nutgrove included. A postcode starting WA9 5 gets the van to you fastest.
No need to shift the car. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Thatto Heath Park, a side street near St Austin's Church: we drain the car where it is. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Nutgrove Methodist Church.
In short, for Thatto Heath people
Before you tip, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it sits, anywhere in Merseyside.