Broughton Moor: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Pause here for a moment when the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Around Broughton Moor, catching it before your motor turns normally means draining and a thorough flush on the spot. Here before the event? In that case what follows covers how it comes about and how to stop it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Many modern diesels in Fothergill, as well as Broughton Moor, carry on two fluids; your engine gets only your diesel. The exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the gas to clean it, from its own tank.
Different tanks, different fillers. Plenty of vehicles have a single flap for the two, while others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is topped up at the pump all the time. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less commonly. It is in the gap that the slip happens.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place in Broughton Moor?
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a drive off Lowlands View before work, or in the car park at Miners Arms on the way home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car warns you, and if it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
Next, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old motor — because a hire car, a new motor or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
A spout-topped bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, after begun, carries on. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Broughton Moor or out in Harker Marsh.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Broughton Moor forecourt or a driveway over in Little Broughton, take a couple of seconds over these before anything goes in.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- On plenty of cars, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- A label inside the fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on many cars. Look for it.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver knows. Check as you collect a rental or company car — at Maryport's car park, say — rather than when the light appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Anywhere across Cumbria the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Turn off after you park — flat ground, motor off, and not in a rush by Seaton Road at the roadside.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — once you've located your filler and read the cap.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then check once more — confirm the diesel cap remained shut throughout. After that, start the car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Step five stays off limits.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Broughton Moor already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of the tank, just where fuel is taken from.
The attendants at Essex Garage, Shell or any forecourt will normally lend a hand to push the vehicle away if asked. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Broughton Moor.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. On the M6, under 50 miles from Broughton Moor, that means the next junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Carlisle, under 50 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Broughton Moor.
When we turn up in Broughton Moor, what takes place?
Anywhere the car has stopped, whether outside Broughton Moor Primary School, beside Methodist or at home, the van comes to it. Both the work and the quote rest on three replies — what liquid, what quantity, and whether it has run — so our engineers ask. You get that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out.
Then the tank is drained and the system purged thoroughly. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither clears out by itself. That is why it matters more. Filter cleaned or, where it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a test of your vehicle. Then our technicians fire it up and confirm it runs properly before we go.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once we get there, provided the motor hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. No money in advance; you settle up that day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. It is worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Broughton Moor, for a moment
Broughton Moor is a small village in Cumbria, situated near the coast and approximately 25 miles from Carlisle. Broughton Moor sits at an elevation of 104 metres, overlooking the surrounding countryside and nearby places such as Harker Marsh and Ewanrigg. Broughton Moor has a population of around 820 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing.
AdBlue drains across Cumbria, Broughton Moor included
Over CA postcodes, our teams covering Broughton Moor — a coastal village — work the surrounding places too, Ellenborough and Ewanrigg among them. A postcode starting CA15 7 gets the van to you fastest.
No need to shift the car. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street close to Saint Columbas, a lay-by on the way to Ribton Woods, a drive. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Elenborough Methodist, ring and ask instead of guessing.
For Broughton Moor drivers, the short version
Always, the cap; then, the tip. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere around Cumbria.