AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Alt: What Now?
Everything turns on a single detail: if your engine has been run since the AdBlue was added — more than anything else. Anywhere your car stands — Fenny Hill, Alt — don't run a motor that hasn't run yet. Switch nothing on, ring 0333 366 0103, and expect a proper flush after a drain, done right where your vehicle sits in Alt. Pull over the moment you safely can then switch off, if it has already run. A bigger job, then, yet the same opening move.
Find the scenario below that matches yours, wherever across Greater Manchester it happened.
AdBlue in a diesel on a Alt forecourt
The cap you opened was the wrong one — and you only notice it while you're standing at the pump, bottle or nozzle in hand. Perhaps you are at the Gulf, maybe at the Shell, possibly somewhere else around Alt.
What it means: this is the best spot to find out. Still inside that tank, with no fuel drawn through: that's where the AdBlue is.
What to do: do not get back in and fire it up to clear the pump. Ask the attendants to help you push the car into a parking bay, keep the till receipt or the bottle, and call us from the forecourt. Can't move it beside the petrol pump? Our explosion-proof kit makes a busy forecourt safe, so we can drain the vehicle in place.
At home around Alt with AdBlue in the diesel tank
For days the dashboard had been nagging you. Only at the recycling bin, the empty bottle in your hand, did you look back at the cap you'd used on the driveway. Homes just off Alt Lane are caught out as much as everywhere else.
Meaning? Provided your car has not moved since, it's second to the pump case. Diesel and AdBlue keep apart: the AdBlue drops to the floor of your tank and stays put, however long the night.
Your move: keys in the house, and so no one drives the vehicle off first thing. After that, ring. Your drive is where it gets drained, be it in Alt or Pitses. The pumps are quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
On the road in Alt with AdBlue in a diesel
A short way after filling up, your motor began misbehaving: rough running, smoke, lost power, warnings on the dash. Summerfield View, say, or the way towards Manchester — a run of under 10 miles.
The upshot: the system has drawn AdBlue in already. Distance sets how far it gets: filter and pipework first, then the injection pump and each injector. It goes further with every mile driven and each restart.
Pull in somewhere safe — that's the next step — then switch everything off. Exit by the first junction — not the services further along — if you're on the M60, under 3 miles from Alt. Don't restart the car to see if it has cleared; it will not have. Ring us and say how far you went.
Hire, lease or company car with AdBlue in the wrong tank
You have had this vehicle hardly a week. Unbeknown to you, the two fillers sit side by side here — unlike your own vehicle, which has no AdBlue or keeps it elsewhere. Throughout Greater Manchester, nobody is immune.
Meaning? Whichever case above counts here — run or unrun — plus one further step. Plenty of hire and company contracts require the owner's sign-off for repairs.
Settling it before we turn up is quicker, and so phone the hire company or your fleet manager, and then us. If you're stranded in the car park outside Mossley (Manchester), or by Park Bridge Institute, while you wait for an answer, leave the car off.
Alt: unsure if it was AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Occasionally the honest answer is "I think so". The bottle is lighter than it should be, there's a faint smell of ammonia round the filler, and you can't remember which cap you took off. Maybe it happened in a hurry at the school gates at Alt Academy, or on a friend's drive in Roundthorn.
The point: your motor isn't harmed by some AdBlue splashed on the outside. If it is inside your diesel tank, though, it does. You can't tell which by turning the key, and doing so would suck in any AdBlue that is in the tank.
Next: act as though it went in, and keep your motor off. Inspecting a tank that turns out free of AdBlue beats draining one after it has been run — so ring then tell us what you saw.
What every AdBlue drain around Alt has in common
Every situation gets the same opening to the work. Wherever your vehicle is — The Manor's car park, a street beside Glodwick Cricket Club, a drive, a forecourt — the van arrives and we ask for the liquid, the amount, plus whether the motor has been run. Over the phone, before dispatch, you are told our price, and those replies shape the work too.
Then the tank is drained and the fuel system purged thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol: AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not rinse out on its own. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Where the motor has not run, expect about half an hour once we arrive, for most cases.
Starting it comes at the end. Our technicians confirm it runs properly on fresh diesel before we leave. If it is spotted soon, the car very rarely has long-term damage, and the whole job takes place where it is. Payment is that day, never upfront. For your insurer, you get a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer. Worth remembering: lots of insurers include misfuelling cover, and so a check of your documents while we travel is worthwhile.
About Alt, briefly
Alt is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated near the River Medlock and close to the city of Manchester. Alt sits at an elevation of 174 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation in the area. Alt is located near several other local places, including Pitses, Glodwick Lows, and Park Bridge, and is approximately 7.3 miles from Manchester city centre.
AdBlue drains around Alt, and across Greater Manchester too
Alt is a residential suburb, and the same teams that cover it work the places around it too, Glodwick Lows and Park Bridge among them, across the OL postcode area. Giving us your OL8 2 postcode finds you quickest of all.
No moving is required, be it parked centrally in Alt or in a layby en route to Wildmoor Leach Wood, and so keep it put. Our van drains it in place. Awkward to pin down? By Hope Congregational Church or a county line? Checking is better than assuming, so phone.
In one line: your situation
Still unrun? Leave it that way and phone. Whichever case applies, Petrol in Diesel handles the rest on 0333 366 0103, throughout Greater Manchester and within Alt — once you pull over, turn off and ring, if it has run.