AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bunkers: Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then put this page down a moment, leave the ignition and engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, carried out just where the car stands in Bunkers, is usually what it needs when found before your motor runs. The remainder of this page covers why it happens and how to make sure it does not — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many newer diesels around Lower Arthurs, like those in Bunkers, run on two liquids; your engine takes just the diesel. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the gas to fresh them, from its own tank.
Each tank has one filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on many motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place in Bunkers?
It's hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Hurry follows from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off Tunstead Lane, or heading home in the car park outside King William IV.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — yet a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is a second factor: a new vehicle.
No part halts the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's seconds, be it in Tunstead or right in the centre of Bunkers.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you tip anything, on a drive in Waterside or a forecourt in Bunkers.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually isn't. Read it rather than going by position.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Greenfield? Check with whoever drove the car last before you set off, rather than when the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
On the day the light comes on — wherever it is in Greater Manchester — a simple routine to use.
- Turn off after you park — flat ground, engine stopped, and never in a rush by Haw Clough Lane at the roadside.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — after you've located your filler and read it.
- The two behind one flap? So make sure the lid on the diesel side stays shut before raising the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Before starting the vehicle, shut the cap and check a second time that the diesel cap never came off.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Never go on to step five.
Bunkers: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Brief order, then. Top of it: the motor remains off. Keep your ignition off as well, since on many diesels it by itself starts your pump. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help push the car away from the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Gulf, the Shell or somewhere else. At home in Bunkers? Then the vehicle stays where it is.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Bunkers sits under 10 miles from the M67; on it, use the first exit. Mileage counts — a short hop across Bunkers makes a smaller job than heading under 15 miles towards Manchester — so say roughly how far it went.
What occurs when our engineers turn up around Bunkers
Outside Greenfield St Mary's CofE School, near St Mary or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Both the work and the price rest on three answers — which fluid, which quantity, and if it has run — so our technicians ask. Nobody sets off before you've had the quote by phone.
Next: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole 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 doesn't wash out on its own. Filter flushed or, if needed, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a check of the car. The engine is started next and tested to confirm it runs properly, all before we leave.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after we arrive, as long as your motor hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a live forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Bunkers, briefly
Bunkers is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated near the riverside and surrounded by nearby places such as Tunstead and Fur Lane. Bunkers has a population of approximately 1296 residents and features predominantly terraced housing. Bunkers sits at an elevation of 240 metres, relatively high compared to the nearby city of Manchester, which is 11 miles away.
Bunkers and Greater Manchester: AdBlue drains across the area
Over OL postcodes, our teams that cover Bunkers — a residential suburb — work the surrounding locations too, Boarshurst and Fur Lane among them. Quote a postcode that starts OL3 7, and the van gets there quickest.
Your car stays where it is. Anywhere it sits — beside Greenfield Methodist Church, on a lay-by heading to Churchill Playing Fields, on a drive — that is where it is emptied. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Greenfield Library.
The short version for Bunkers drivers
First, the cap; then, the pour. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Greater Manchester, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — and so leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103.