Warton: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Keep the engine and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Around Warton, catching it before your motor turns usually leaves draining and a thorough flush where it stands. Here before the event? Then what follows explains why it happens and what to stop it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Many modern diesels around Austrey, as well as Warton, carry on two fluids; your motor gets just the diesel. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler on each tank. Many of cars have a single flap for both, whereas some move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, the diesel side gets filled all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. That gap is where the error lives.
Warton: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Maypole Road before work, or in the car park at The Office on the way home.
Unfamiliar motors come second, as well. Rentals, new motors and company vehicles put their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip after it has started. Whether it occurs in Little Warton or the middle of Warton, it's the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
A few seconds is all these take — so check them before you tip anything, on a drive in St Helena or a forecourt around Warton.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue ones are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally aren't.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on plenty of vehicles. Check for it.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler is if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Polesworth.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Anywhere in Warwickshire the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Church Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It seems silly. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Finish once that tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; before that, pour slowly through its built-in spout.
- Before starting your car, shut the cap and check again that your diesel cap never opened off.
Find at the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Don't go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Warton?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting your engine. Do not switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel won't thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of that tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — Polesworth Garage, Asda Express or another — the attendants will usually help roll your car away, when you ask. If you're on your own driveway in Warton, leave the vehicle where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. The next exit means the place to leave if you're on the M42, under 3 miles from Warton. A short hop across Warton is a smaller job than a run towards Lichfield, under 15 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival in Warton, and what occurs next
The van comes to your car anywhere it stopped — your own drive, near Holy Trinity Church, or by Warton Nethersole's CofE Primary School. Our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, because the replies decide this work and the quote. During the call itself, you hear the price — before dispatch.
Then the tank is emptied and your system flushed thoroughly. Much more than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: crystals form, some metals corrode, and none of that washes away on its own, no matter how long it is left. A test is last: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is flushed or changed as needed. Your engine is fired up next and tested to confirm it runs smoothly, all before we head off.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour once our engineers arrive, as long as your engine has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet at night 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 plenty of insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Warton
Warton is a small village in Warwickshire, situated inland at an elevation of 92 metres, approximately 10.9 miles from Lichfield. Warton has a population of around 1472 people, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type. Warton is located near other villages such as Little Warton, Orton-on-the-Hill, and Polesworth, and is about 99.2 miles northwest of London.
AdBlue drains around Warton and across Warwickshire
Over B postcodes, the teams that cover Warton — a rural village — work the surrounding places too, Polesworth and Orton-on-the-Hill included. Quickest of all: give a B79 0 postcode for the van.
Your car stays put. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Stiper's Hill Plantation, a side street close to St Edith of Polesworth: our engineers drain it where it is. Assuming doesn't help behind St. Leonard's Chapel, on a boundary, or somewhere hard to pin down; ring and ask.
For Warton people, the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it stands, wherever in Warwickshire: switch the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.