Brooksbottoms: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and the ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, carried out just where the car stands in Brooksbottoms, is usually all it takes if caught before your motor runs. Nothing happened yet? Below, the page covers the reasons it occurs and the ways to prevent it altogether.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Diesel goes to the motor — yet plenty of modern diesels seen around Brooksbottoms and Rowlands carry a second liquid too. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
Different tanks, different fillers. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, tipped by a driver who has to stop and think what cap to use. That gap is where the mistake lives.
Brooksbottoms: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle 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 Riverside Drive before work, or in the car park outside Footballers Inn on the way home.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after started, carries on. Lower Summerseat or the heart of Brooksbottoms: it takes the same few seconds either way.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Be it a Brooksbottoms forecourt or a driveway out in Wood Road, take a few seconds on these before anything goes in.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Open the flap and look for a label — plenty of motors mark what belongs in which inlet right there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler is if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Bromley Cross, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Greater Manchester that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Waterside Road.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" aloud while unscrewing it. It seems daft. It works.
- Both under one flap? Then confirm the cap on the diesel filler stays shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Spot at stage two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? Then stop right there. Step five is off limits.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Brooksbottoms?
Do not start your motor: that's how the short order of things begins. The fuel pump starts on many diesels as soon as the ignition goes on — so keep it off. Filling up with diesel will not weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of that tank, right where fuel is taken from.
At a forecourt — Esso, EG On the Move or another — the staff will usually help roll the car away, if you ask. At home around Brooksbottoms? Then the car stays put.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. On the M66, under a mile from Brooksbottoms, that means the next junction. A short hop across Brooksbottoms is a smaller job than a run towards Salford, under 15 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
What occurs when we arrive in Brooksbottoms
Outside Summerseat Methodist Primary School, near Holcombe Brook Tennis Club or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, we come to it. The replies decide this work and the quote, so our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run. No one heads out until you have heard the quote over the phone.
Emptying the tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the 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. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Your engine is started next and checked to make sure it runs smoothly, all before we leave.
If your engine has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. No money in advance; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Brooksbottoms itself
Brooksbottoms is a village in Greater Manchester, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 107 metres. Brooksbottoms lies near several smaller communities, including Lower Summerseat, Summerseat, and Higher Summerseat, and is approximately 10 miles from the city of Salford. Brooksbottoms has a population of around 1265 people, predominantly living in terraced housing. Brooksbottoms is located in the North West region of England, about 173 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Greater Manchester, Brooksbottoms included
Summerseat and Higher Summerseat are among the places around Brooksbottoms, a village, that the same teams cover, over BL postcodes. Fastest of all: quote a BL9 5 postcode for our van.
Moving the car isn't necessary. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Summerseat Nature Reserve, a side street close to Emmanuel Church Centre: we drain the car where it stands. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Greenmount Cricket Club.
In short, for Brooksbottoms drivers
First, the cap; then, the pour. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, wherever around Greater Manchester: keep the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.