How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bradshaw
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and your ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. In Bradshaw, catching it before the motor runs usually leaves draining and a thorough flush where it stands. 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.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads around Bradshaw and Firwood Fold carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Many of vehicles have a single flap for the two, while others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Filling the diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less frequently. That gap is where the slip lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Bradshaw: how it takes place
Carelessness seldom causes it. What does is three things lining up at once.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from your car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Oaks Avenue, or outside The Crofters Arms on the way home that evening.
The old car's cap is where the hand reaches — yet a hire car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's a second factor: an unfamiliar car.
Third, the bottle fits: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as easily, and once the tip begins, no part stops it. It takes a few seconds, whether out in Bradshaw Chapel or bang in the centre of Bradshaw.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A few seconds is all these take — so check them before you tip anything, on a drive in Castle Hill or a forecourt in Bradshaw.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on many vehicles. Check for it.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Hall i' th' Wood, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Greater Manchester that is.
- Stop somewhere level, motor off, with time to spare — never rushing on the side of Ormrod Street.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two share a flap, make sure it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and check once more — making sure the diesel cap remained closed throughout. Only then, start your car.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop right there. Never go on to step five.
Bradshaw: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Short list, then. Top of that: your engine remains off. Leave your ignition off as well, because on plenty of diesels switching it on alone starts the pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
The attendants at Morrisons, Shell or another forecourt will normally help pushing the car away if you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Bradshaw.
When your engine has been run already, stop somewhere safe then switch the car off. On the St. Peter's Way, under 5 miles from Bradshaw, that means the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Bradshaw is smaller a job than a trip of under 10 miles to Salford, and so say.
What happens when our technicians arrive in Bradshaw
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside St Columba's RC Primary School, near St. Maxentius or on your own driveway. Both the work and our price depend on three replies — what liquid, what quantity, and whether it has run — so our technicians ask. You hear that price by phone, before anyone sets off.
Draining your tank comes next, then a full flush of your system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. The filter cleaned or, if it must be, swapped; clean diesel in; then a test of your car. After that our technicians fire it up and make sure it runs properly before we go.
Unstarted vehicles usually mean a half-hour visit after arrival. The equipment is safe on a busy forecourt, and quiet enough for a residential street after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It's worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Bradshaw itself
Bradshaw is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated near the River Irwell and characterised by semi-detached housing. Bradshaw sits at an elevation of 116 metres, approximately 9.7 miles from Salford and 173.7 miles from London. Bradshaw is close to nearby places such as Bradshaw Chapel, Hall i th Wood, and Harwood Lee, and has a population of around 3309 residents.
Bradshaw and Greater Manchester: AdBlue drains across the area
Hall i th Wood and Harwood Lee are among the places around Bradshaw, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, over BL postcodes. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting BL2 3.
Your car does not need to move. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Longsight Park, a side street close to Harwood Library: we drain it where it stands. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of St Andrew's Methodist Church.
The short version for Bradshaw drivers
Pour nothing till you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave it off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it sits, anywhere across Greater Manchester.