Wetheral Pasture: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Pause here a minute when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Wetheral Pasture. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Plenty of current diesels on the roads around Wetheral Pasture and Stripes carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
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. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. The AdBlue side is topped up far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake grows in that gap between them.
Wetheral Pasture: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a drive off Townhead Court before work, or in the car park outside Wheatsheaf on the way home: that is where the hurried top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and once it is gone, limp mode kicks in.
Unfamiliar cars are next, too. Hire cars, new cars and company motors put their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Wetheral Pasture or out in Wetheral Shield.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt in Wetheral Pasture or a drive out in Wetheral Plain. Seconds, no more.
- Position can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue caps are often blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually don't.
- On many vehicles, size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of cars have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't 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 Wetheral? Ask the person who drove the car last before you set off, rather than when the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
The day the light comes on, anywhere in Cumbria, follow this routine.
- Turn off once parked — flat ground, engine off, and never in a rush by Thornedge Gardens at the roadside.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you've located your filler and read it.
- Both behind a single flap? So make sure the lid on your diesel side stays closed before raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, and check once more — confirm the diesel filler stayed closed the whole time. Only then, start the vehicle.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Step five is off limits.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Wetheral Pasture?
The short order of things, starting with not starting the engine. Keep the ignition off too, because on many diesels it alone starts your pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it's the Shell or the BP, ask the attendants to help push your car away from the pump. Your own drive around Wetheral Pasture is where it stays.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Wetheral Pasture sits under 3 miles from the M6; on it, take the first junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Carlisle, under 5 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Wetheral Pasture.
Our arrival around Wetheral Pasture, and what takes place next
Our van comes to the vehicle anywhere it stopped — your own drive, near Wetheral Caves, or by Cumwhinton School. Both the work and our quote rest on three replies — which liquid, what amount, and if it's run — so we ask. During the phone call itself, you hear the price — before anything else.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. Testing is at the end: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and your filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. Before leaving, we start the car and make sure that it's running smoothly.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour once we get there, provided your engine has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a live forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. No money in advance; you settle up on the day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. It is worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Wetheral Pasture, briefly
Wetheral Pasture is a small hamlet situated on the riverside in Cumbria, with Wetheral Pasture being close to the city of Carlisle and the nearby villages of Wetheral Shield and Cumwhinton. Wetheral Pasture has a population of around 512 people and Wetheral Pasture is characterised by its predominantly detached housing. Wetheral Pasture sits at an elevation of 62 metres above sea level, in a scenic area near the River Eden.
AdBlue drains across Cumbria, Wetheral Pasture included
Cumwhinton and Wetheral are among the towns near Wetheral Pasture, a rural hamlet, that the same vans cover, over CA postcodes. A postcode starting CA4 8 gets our van to you fastest.
There's no need to shift the car. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Baxter Fold, a side street near Wetheral Village Community Hall: our technicians drain it where it stands. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Wetheral Methodist Church.
For Wetheral Pasture drivers, the short version
Tip no AdBlue till you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere around Cumbria, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — so leave it off and call 0333 366 0103.