AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Brown Edge: How It Occurs and How to Prevent It
Pause here for a moment when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then ring 0333 366 0103. In Brown Edge, catching it before your motor turns normally leaves draining and a thorough flush on the spot. Reading before the event? Then the rest explains why it happens and how to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
No single fluid but two: that's how plenty of modern diesels around Brown Edge and Snape Green run, with diesel for your engine. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Other motors put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot more place both together under one flap. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
Brown Edge: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a driveway off Turning Lane before work, or in the car park outside The Old Duke heading home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle warns you, and if it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
The old car's filler is where your hand goes — yet a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That's a second factor: an unfamiliar motor.
Nothing halts the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Carr Cross or the heart of Brown Edge: it takes the same few seconds either way.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Shirdley Hill or a forecourt around Brown Edge, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- Cannot find it next to your diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or in the boot — the owner's manual will say where.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Meols Cop.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
When the light goes on, anywhere around Lancashire, use this routine.
- Turn off after you park — level ground, motor stopped, and never in a rush beside Fieldlands on the verge.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, but it does the trick.
- Both under a single flap? Then make sure the lid on the diesel filler stays shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting your car, close the cap and check a second time that the diesel cap never came off.
Find at the second or third step that the bottle went into the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Step five stays out.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Brown Edge?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the engine. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch it on. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
At a forecourt — Tesco, BP or any other — the attendants will usually help roll the car away, when you ask. At home around Brown Edge? So your car remains put.
When the motor has run by now, pull over somewhere safe and turn the car off. On the M58, under 10 miles from Brown Edge, that means the next exit. Distance matters — a short hop across Brown Edge is a smaller job than heading under 15 miles to Preston — so say roughly how far it went.
Brown Edge: what takes place when our engineers turn up
Wherever the vehicle has stopped, be it outside Kew Woods Primary School, beside Kew Evangelical Church or on your own drive, our van comes to it. Both the work and our price depend on three answers — what liquid, what amount, and whether it has run — so our technicians ask. Nobody heads out before you have heard our quote by phone.
Then the tank is drained and your system flushed thoroughly. Much more than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: the crystals form, certain metals are attacked, and nothing clears out on its own, however long it is left. The filter flushed or, if it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a check of the vehicle. After that our engineers fire it up and check it runs smoothly before we go.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour after our technicians get there, as long as your engine has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Brown Edge, for a moment
Brown Edge is a suburban area in Lancashire, situated on the riverside with an elevation of around 6 metres. Brown Edge is located near several other small places, including Carr Cross, Pool Hey, and Jacks Mere, and is approximately 14.5 miles from the city of Preston. Brown Edge has a population of around 907 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Brown Edge is also relatively distant from London, at around 188.5 miles away.
Brown Edge and Lancashire: AdBlue drains across the area
Over PR postcodes, the vans that cover Brown Edge — a residential suburb — work the surrounding locations too, Jacks Mere and Pool Hey included. Quickest of all: quote a PR8 5 postcode for our van.
Moving your car is not necessary. Draining takes place on the spot, be it a driveway, a street near Church of Saint Francis of Assisi, or a layby on the way to Delph Wood. Assuming doesn't help at the back of St. Mark's, on a boundary, or somewhere hard to pin down; phone and ask.
Brown Edge drivers: the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, anywhere around Lancashire: keep it off then phone 0333 366 0103.