AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Broughton: Why It Happens and How to Prevent It
Stop reading a minute when the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then phone 0333 366 0103. Around Broughton, finding it before the motor turns normally leaves a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of current diesels on the roads round Broughton and Sharoe Green carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to clean them, from a separate tank.
Different tanks, different fillers. Many of motors share a single flap for the two, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. Seldom filled, AdBlue normally goes in out of a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think which filler to use. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Broughton: how it happens
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car 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 drive off Whittingham Lane before work, or in the car park at The Broughton Inn on the way home.
The old car's filler is where your hand reaches — but a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's a second thing: a new vehicle.
Nothing halts the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Broughton or out in Pudding Pie Nook.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these first, at a forecourt around Broughton or a drive out in Woodplumpton. Seconds, that's all.
- Read the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally are not.
- Plenty of motors give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- In the 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.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Preston? Check with whoever drove the car last before leaving, not once the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
On the day the light appears — wherever you are across Lancashire — a simple routine to follow.
- Not in a rush on the side of Woodplumpton Lane, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park then switch off properly.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, yes, yet it does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two sit under a flap, confirm it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the car, close the cap and look again that your diesel cap was never came off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't carry on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Broughton already?
Don't start the motor: that's where the short order of things begins. The fuel pump starts on many diesels as soon as the ignition goes on — and so keep it off. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
Ask the attendants to help push your car away from the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Texaco, the Esso or anywhere else. If you're on your own drive in Broughton, leave it where it stands.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. On the M55, under a mile from Broughton, that means the next junction. A short hop across Broughton is a smaller job than a run towards Preston, under 5 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our technicians get there around Broughton, what happens?
Anywhere the car came to rest, be it by Broughton-in-Amounderness Church of England Primary School, near 1st Broughton Scouts or on your own drive, the van comes to it. Which fluid went in, the amount, and if it ran: we ask since the replies set the work and price. The price comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
After that: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and none of it clears away by itself. Hence it matters more. After the filter is cleaned — or renewed, where needed — fresh diesel goes in, and finally the car gets tested. Before leaving, our technicians start the car and confirm that it is running correctly.
Unstarted vehicles usually need a half-hour job from the moment we arrive. The equipment is safe on a busy filling station, and hushed enough for a driveway after dark. No money in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to check yours.
About Broughton and where it is
Broughton is a village in Lancashire, situated inland near the city of Preston, with Broughton being close to nearby places such as Pudding Pie Nook and Fulwood. Broughton has a population of around 1185 people and Broughton is characterised by its predominantly detached housing. Broughton sits at an elevation of 43 metres, relatively low compared to other areas in the region.
AdBlue drains across Lancashire, Broughton included
Broughton is a rural village, and our vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Lightfoot Green and Fulwood among them, across the PR postcode area. Give a postcode beginning PR3 5, and our van arrives fastest.
The car remains put. Anywhere it stands — near St John Baptist, Broughton, in a lay-by en route to King Georges Playing Fields, on a drive — that is where it gets emptied. Awkward to explain, like the back of Fulwood Free Methodist Church? Close to a border? Checking beats guessing, so ring.
For Broughton people, the short version
Tip nothing until you've read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Keep it off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, throughout Lancashire.