How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Burnley Lane
Stop reading a minute if your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then phone 0333 366 0103. Normally, when the engine has not run, it is drained and fully flushed where your vehicle is around Burnley Lane. Reading before the event? In that case the rest explains how it comes about and how to stop it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads about Burnley Lane and Harle Syke carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Some vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more have both side by side behind one flap. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less commonly. The mistake lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen around Burnley Lane?
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
On a driveway off Brennand Street before work, or in the car park outside Duke of York heading home: that's where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car warns you, and once it is empty, limp mode follows.
Unfamiliar cars come next, as well. Hire cars, new cars and company cars put their fillers differently, and habit goes for the cap it used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, after begun, keeps on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Burnley Lane or out in Heasandford.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Be it a Burnley Lane forecourt or a drive over in Brierfield, spend a couple of seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Many motors give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Open the flap and check for a label — plenty of cars mark which goes in which inlet just there.
- The handbook shows where it is if the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Burnley Central? Check with the person who drove the car last before leaving, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
For the day the light comes on — anywhere it is in Lancashire — a routine to follow.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — not rushing on the side of Bracewell Street.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It seems daft. It does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, confirm it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Discover during the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Don't go on to stage five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Burnley Lane?
The short order of things, beginning with no starting the motor. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch it on. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the base instead of mixing — and that's where your fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — Esso, Shell or another — the staff will normally help push the car clear, when you ask. If you're on your own drive around Burnley Lane, leave the car where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. Leave the M65 — under a mile out of Burnley Lane — at the next exit. Mileage matters — a short hop across Burnley Lane makes a smaller job than driving under 25 miles towards Preston — so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our technicians turn up in Burnley Lane, what occurs?
Anywhere your car came to rest, be it outside Barden Primary School, beside St Cuthbert or at home, the van travels to it. What fluid got in, the amount, and whether it ran: our engineers ask because the answers decide the work and quote. During the phone call itself, you are told our price — before dispatch.
The fuel system is then cleaned thoroughly, after your tank is drained. With AdBlue that counts 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. A test comes last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the filter is flushed or changed if necessary. Before leaving, our technicians fire it up and make sure that it is running properly.
If the engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Burnley Lane and where it is
Burnley Lane is a suburban area in Lancashire, situated near the River Calder and characterised by its terraced housing. Burnley Lane sits at an elevation of around 145 metres, with nearby neighbourhoods including Heasandford, Reedley, and Stoneyholme. Burnley Lane is located approximately 19 miles from Preston and 182 miles from London, making it a commuter base for the surrounding region. Burnley Lane has a population of around 13383 residents, living in a mix of old and new housing stock.
Burnley Lane and Lancashire: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout BB postcodes, the teams that cover Burnley Lane — a residential suburb — work the nearby spots too, Stoneyholme and Reedley included. Quote a postcode that starts BB10 1, and our van gets there quickest.
Your car remains where it is. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Stock Park, a side street near St Andrew with St Margaret and St James: our technicians drain it where it stands. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Community Library? By a county line? Asking is better than assuming, so phone.
In short, for Burnley Lane people
Before you pour, read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, wherever across Lancashire: keep it off then call 0333 366 0103.