Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in The Valley
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Normally, when the engine hasn't run, it's emptied and fully flushed where your car sits around The Valley. The remainder of this page explains why it takes place and how to make sure it does not — handy if you are reading before it has happened.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Diesel feeds the engine — but plenty of modern diesels seen round The Valley and Marshfield Bank hold another liquid as well. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to fresh them, from its own tank.
There's a filler on every tank. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Topping up your diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. Mistakes happen in that gap between them.
The Valley: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the car, and running dry means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Stewart Street, or outside The Hop Pole on the way home that evening.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part halts the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of The Valley or out in Crewe.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these first, on a forecourt in The Valley or a driveway out in Coppenhall. A few seconds, that's all.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Many vehicles give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on many vehicles. Look for it.
- Cannot find it beside your diesel inlet? Then look beneath the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook says where.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check as you collect a rental or fleet car — at Crewe's car park, say — not once the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Cheshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Alton Street, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park then switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, yet it works.
- Both behind a single flap? So confirm the cap on the diesel filler stays closed before raising the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, and check once more — confirm your diesel cap stayed shut the whole time. After that, start the car.
Find at the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Stage five is out.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around The Valley?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with not starting the engine. Do not switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
The staff at Morrisons, Esso or another forecourt will normally help pushing your car clear when asked. If you are on your own drive around The Valley, leave the vehicle where it stands.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your motor has already run. Leave the M6 — under 5 miles out of The Valley — at the next exit. A short hop across The Valley is a smaller job than a run towards Stoke-on-Trent, under 15 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
The Valley: what occurs when we turn up
The van comes to the vehicle wherever it stopped — your own drive, near All Saints Parish Church, or by Edleston Primary School. Both the work and our quote depend on three answers — what liquid, what quantity, and whether it's run — so we ask. Nobody sets off until you've heard our price by phone.
Draining that tank comes next, then a full flush of the system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and none of it washes out by itself. That is why it matters more. Once your filter has been cleaned — or renewed, where required — clean diesel goes in, and then your car gets tested. Your engine is fired up next and tested to be sure it runs properly, all before our engineers leave.
Using pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where your motor hasn't run need about half an hour once we are there. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About The Valley itself
The Valley is a suburban area in Cheshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 46 metres. The Valley lies near several notable towns, including Crewe and Stoke-on-Trent, and is part of a larger network of residential communities in the region. The Valley has a population of approximately 6926 people, predominantly living in terraced housing.
AdBlue drains across Cheshire, The Valley included
Over CW postcodes, the teams covering The Valley — a residential suburb — work the surrounding locations too, Woolstanwood and Wistaston Green included. A postcode starting CW2 7 gets our van to you fastest.
The car does not need to shift. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near St Mary's Caritas Centre Crewe, a lay-by on the way to Tipkinder Park, a driveway. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of West Street Christian Fellowship, ring and ask instead of assuming.
The Valley drivers: the short version
First, the cap; then, the tip. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around Cheshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless — and so leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103.