Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Whitfield: Why It Occurs
Stop here a minute when the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Whitfield. The rest of this page covers why it occurs and how to ensure it does not — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Many current diesels on the roads around Whitfield and Oxford carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
There is a filler on each tank. Many of motors have a single flap for the two, while others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. Much less often, the AdBlue side gets filled — mostly from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. It is in the gap that the slip lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Whitfield
It's seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Haste follows from the warning. The vehicle warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off Whitfield Road, or heading home in the car park outside The Jester.
Next, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old motor — because a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers where your last one did not.
A spout-topped bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once started, carries on. Ridgeway or the heart of Whitfield: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Bemersley Green or a forecourt in Whitfield, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside the fuel flap: plenty of motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, 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 Longport.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Staffordshire that is.
- Turn off after you park — flat ground, motor off, and not rushed beside Whitley Road at the roadside.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the vehicle on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Spot at stage two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? Then stop just there. Don't go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Whitfield?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with not starting your engine. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch it on. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the base instead of mixing — and that's where the fuel is pulled from.
Ask the attendants to help push the car away from the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Murco Petroleum, the Texaco or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive around Whitfield.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next junction means the place to leave when you are on the M6, under 10 miles from Whitfield. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Stoke-on-Trent, under 5 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Whitfield.
Our arrival in Whitfield, and what takes place next
The van comes to the car anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside Chell Heath Local Centre, or outside Ball Green Primary Academy. The replies determine this work and our quote, so our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run. That price comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
Draining your tank comes next, then a full flush of the fuel system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. Testing is at the end: before that, clean diesel is added, and the filter is cleaned or replaced as needed. Your engine is started next and checked to be sure it runs correctly, all before our technicians leave.
If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents your insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, have a look at your policy; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Whitfield, for a moment
Whitfield is a small suburban area situated on the outskirts of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, with a riverside setting and an elevation of around 178 metres. Whitfield lies close to nearby places such as Ridgeway, Fegg Hayes, and Ball Green, and is approximately 3.7 miles from Stoke-on-Trent. Whitfield has a population of around 512 people and is characterised by semi-detached housing. Whitfield is also relatively distant from London, at around 138.6 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Staffordshire, Whitfield included
Being a residential suburb, Whitfield shares its vans nearby areas — Fegg Hayes, Ball Green — all the way across ST postcodes and the wider area around them. Give a postcode beginning ST6 8, and the van arrives fastest.
Your car remains where it is. We drain it where it is — a side street close to The Church of the Saviour, a lay-by on the way to Chatterley Whitfield Heritage Country Park, a drive. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Zion Methodist Church.
In short, for Whitfield motorists
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave it off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it sits, anywhere in Staffordshire.