AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Windle: How It Happens and How to Avoid It
Pause reading for a moment when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Windle. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Many modern diesels on the roads round Windle and Newtown carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler for each 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. Diesel gets filled at each filling station call-out, again and again. Seldom filled, AdBlue normally goes in from a bottle, poured by a driver who has to stop and think what filler it needs. The slip lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens in Windle
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the vehicle, and running out means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Lawrence Road, perhaps outside Gerard Arms on the way home that evening.
Unfamiliar motors are second, as well. Rentals, new motors and company motors put their fillers differently, and the hand goes for the cap used on the old one.
Nothing stops the tip once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it happens in Dentons Green or the middle of Windle, it is the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A few seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you tip anything, on a drive in Cowley Hill or a forecourt in Windle.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually is not. Read it instead of going by position.
- Many cars fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it lives if the filler is not next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at St Helens Central.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
When the light comes on, wherever around Merseyside, follow this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Rutherford Road.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It sounds silly. It works.
- The two under one flap? Then make sure the lid on the diesel side stays closed ahead of raising the bottle.
- Finish once that tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, tip gently using the own spout.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Windle already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your motor. Leave your ignition off as well, because on plenty of diesels switching it on alone starts your fuel pump. Diluting it with extra diesel fails, since AdBlue settles to the bottom rather than mixing — and that's where your fuel is pulled from.
The attendants at Tesco, Texaco or another forecourt will normally lend a hand to push your car away when you ask. If you are on your own drive in Windle, leave the vehicle where it sits.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. The next junction is the place to leave if you're on the M57, under 5 miles from Windle. Mileage counts — a quick hop across Windle is a smaller job than driving under 10 miles to Liverpool — so tell us about how far it went.
When our technicians get there in Windle, what happens?
Our technicians come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Bleak Hill Primary School, close to Smithy Heritage Centre or on your own drive. We ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it has run, since the replies settle this work and the price. No one heads out before you have had the price by phone.
Draining the tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the fuel system. More than with petrol, it matters here: crystals form, some metals corrode, and nothing washes out unaided, no matter how long it sits. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Next our engineers fire it up and make sure it runs correctly before we go.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor has not run need roughly half an hour after we are there. The insurer will ask for an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once the job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. It is worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Windle, briefly
Windle is a suburban area in Merseyside, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 41 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Windle lies approximately 9.5 miles from Liverpool and 175 miles from London, forming part of the larger urban landscape of the North West. Windle is close to nearby places such as Dentons Green, Eccleston, and Windlehurst, and has a population of around 4512 residents. Windle's location near the river contributes to its setting and character.
AdBlue drains around Windle and across Merseyside
Being a residential suburb, Windle shares its vans surrounding places — Eccleston, Windlehurst — all the way across WA postcodes and the wider area beyond. Quickest of all: give a WA10 6 postcode to the van.
Your car doesn't need to move. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Eccleston Library, a lay-by on the way to Ruskin Sport Village, a driveway. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of St Thomas of Canterbury RC Church, ring and ask instead of guessing.
For Windle motorists, the short version
First, the cap; after that, the pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere around Merseyside.