Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Clayton Brook: Why It Occurs
Keep your motor and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Normally, if your engine hasn't turned, it's emptied and fully purged where your vehicle sits around Clayton Brook. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many current diesels on the roads about Clayton Brook and Pippin Street carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the 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.
There's a filler on every tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the layout on a lot of cars. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. Much less often, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. It is in that gap that the mistake happens.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Clayton Brook: how it happens
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Long Acre before work, or in the car park outside Lord Nelson on the way home.
The old car's cap is where your hand goes — yet a hire car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That is a second thing: a new motor.
No part 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. Seed Lee or the middle of Clayton Brook: it is the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Top o th Lane or a forecourt in Clayton Brook, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — many vehicles mark which goes in which inlet right there.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The previous driver will know. Check when you pick up a hire car or fleet car — at Bamber Bridge's car park, perhaps — not once the warning comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Lancashire that is.
- Pull in somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — not rushing on the side of Great Greens Lane.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- Both under a single flap? So confirm the lid on your diesel side stays closed before raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Do not go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Clayton Brook already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the motor. Keep your ignition off as well, because on plenty of diesels it by itself runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel won't weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of your tank, right where the fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — Esso, Asda or another — the attendants will normally help push your car away, when you ask. If you are on your own driveway around Clayton Brook, leave the vehicle where it sits.
When the engine has run already, pull over safely then turn it off. Clayton Brook lies under a mile from the M61; on it, use the first exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Preston, under 5 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Clayton Brook.
What occurs when we get there around Clayton Brook
Anywhere the vehicle has stopped, be it outside Clayton Brook Primary School, beside Clayton Brook Community Centre or at home, our van travels to it. We ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run, because those answers settle this work and the quote. Nobody heads out until you have had the price over the phone.
The fuel system is then flushed thoroughly, after your tank is emptied. 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 does not wash out on its own. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. The engine is fired up next and checked to be sure it runs properly, all before our engineers go.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor has not run need roughly half an hour once our technicians are there. Nothing upfront; you settle up on the day. At the end, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Clayton Brook
Clayton Brook is a suburban area in Lancashire, situated near the River Lostock and close to the city of Preston. Clayton Brook has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly characterised by terraced homes. Clayton Brook sits at an elevation of around 95 metres, and is located near other local places such as Seed Lee and Clayton Green. Clayton Brook is approximately 4.2 miles from Preston city centre, making it a commuter-friendly location.
AdBlue drains around Clayton Brook and across Lancashire
As a residential suburb, Clayton Brook has the same vans as surrounding areas — Thorpe Green, Clayton Green — all the way across PR postcodes and the wider area around them. A postcode starting PR5 8 gets the van to you fastest.
The vehicle stays put. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Green Wood, a side street near Clayton Brook Community Church: our engineers drain the vehicle where it is. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Clayton Green Library? By a county line? Asking is better than guessing, and so phone.
For Clayton Brook drivers, the short version
Always, the cap; then, the tip. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, across Lancashire.