AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Whiston: How It Occurs and How to Avoid It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and your ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. Usually, when the motor hasn't run, it's drained and thoroughly purged where your car sits around Whiston. 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 does not.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads about Whiston and Windy Arbor carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Different tanks, different fillers. Other cars keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot more place both side by side under one flap. Diesel goes in at every filling station call-out, week in, week out. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less commonly. The mistake grows in that gap between the two.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs around Whiston
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Dragon Lane before work, or in the car park outside The Carrs Hotel on the way home.
Then, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old vehicle — since a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
Nothing stops the tip after 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 decide it, in the middle of Whiston or out in Holt.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Look at these before pouring, at a forecourt around Whiston or a driveway out in Eccleston Lane Ends. A few seconds, no more.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- Many vehicles give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows which it lives when the filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask when you collect a hire car or company car — at the nearest station's car park, perhaps — rather than once the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Merseyside that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Dragon Drive.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both share a flap, confirm it is shut before the bottle comes up.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? So stop just there. Step five is out.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Whiston already?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with no starting your engine. Don't switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Diluting it with more diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the base rather than mixing — and that's where the fuel is pulled from.
The attendants at Texaco, Tesco or another forecourt will normally lend a hand to push the vehicle away if you ask. Your own drive in Whiston is where it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the motor has already run. On the M57, under a mile from Whiston, that means the next exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Liverpool, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Whiston.
What happens when our engineers turn up in Whiston
Our van reaches the vehicle anywhere it stopped — your own drive, beside Whiston Town Hall, or outside Whiston Willis Primary Academy. Both the work and the price rest on three replies — which liquid, which quantity, and if it has run — so our technicians ask. You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out.
Then the tank is cleared and the fuel system flushed thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. Once the fuel filter is cleaned — or replaced, if needed — fresh diesel goes in, and then the vehicle is tested. Before leaving, we start the engine and make sure that it is running properly.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after we get there, as long as the engine hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. 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; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Whiston, for a moment
Whiston is a suburban area in Merseyside, located approximately 7.6 miles east of Liverpool, and sits at an elevation of 53 metres. Whiston is characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, which reflects the residential development of the area. Whiston is situated near other local places, including Holt, Prescot, and Eccleston Park, and is home to around 8226 people. Whiston is also relatively far from London, at a distance of 173.2 miles.
AdBlue drains about Whiston, and Merseyside beyond
Over L postcodes, the vans covering Whiston — a residential suburb — work the surrounding places too, Eccleston Park and Prescot included. Quickest of all: give a L35 2 postcode to the van.
Moving your car isn't needed. Draining takes place right there, whether a driveway, a road by St Luke the Evangelist, or a layby towards Whitestone Millenium Green. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of St Paul, ring and ask rather than assuming.
In short, for Whiston drivers
Always, the cap; then, the pour. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it waits, anywhere across Merseyside.