Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Cottam
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and the ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Cottam. Here before the event? In that case the rest explains why it comes about and how to prevent it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many modern diesels in Lower Bartle, like those in Cottam, carry on two fluids; your engine takes only the diesel. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
There is a filler on each tank. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have both together under one flap. Diesel gets filled on each forecourt call-out, week in, week out. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. It's in that gap that the error happens.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank take place around Cottam?
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Hurry follows from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off Sandy Lane, or on the way home in the car park at The Ancient Oak.
New-to-you motors come next, too. Hire cars, new motors and company motors put their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
Third, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in just as easily, and after the tip starts, nothing halts it. It's a few seconds, whether in Higher Bartle or bang in the heart of Cottam.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Ingol or a forecourt around Cottam, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally isn't. Read it instead of going by position.
- On plenty of motors, the size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Check inside your fuel flap: many cars have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says where it lives when the filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Salwick, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
Wherever across Lancashire the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Kingsley Road.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — after you have found the filler and read the cap.
- The two under a single flap? So confirm the cap on your diesel filler stays closed ahead of raising the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Stage five stays out.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Cottam already?
Short list, then. Top of that: the motor remains unstarted. Keep your ignition off too, because on plenty of diesels it alone starts the fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
The attendants at BP, EG On the Move or another forecourt will normally help to push the vehicle away if you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Cottam.
Already run? Stop when it's sensible, then turn off. Leave the M55 — under a mile out of Cottam — at the first exit. A short hop across Cottam is a smaller job than a run towards Preston, under 5 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival in Cottam, and what happens next
The van comes to your car wherever it stopped — your own driveway, near St Andrew and Blessed George Haydock Catholic Church, or by Cottam Primary School. Both the work and our price depend on three answers — which fluid, which quantity, and whether it has run — so our engineers ask. The quote is given over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Then the tank is drained and your system purged thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes out unaided. That is why it matters more. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. We do not leave until it has been started and is running smoothly.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour once our engineers get there, provided your engine has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Before we get there, have a look at your policy; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Cottam
Cottam is a village in Lancashire, situated inland near the city of Preston, with a mix of housing types but predominantly detached homes. Cottam sits at a relatively low elevation of 36 metres, close to the nearby villages of Higher Bartle and Tanterton. Cottam is located approximately 3 miles from Preston, making it a commuter-friendly location. Cottam has a population of around 2698 residents, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains across Lancashire, Cottam included
Nog Tow and Tanterton are among the towns near Cottam, a rural village, that the same teams cover, throughout PR postcodes. Quickest of all: quote a PR4 0 postcode for our van.
There's no need to shift the vehicle. Anywhere it stands — beside Two Hounds Hunting Wild Boar, on a lay-by heading to Miller Green, on a drive — that is where it is cleared. Awkward to explain, like the back of Ingol Methodist Church? By a county line? Asking is better than assuming, so ring.
The short version for Cottam motorists
Pour nothing until you have read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it stands, wherever in Lancashire: switch it off then ring 0333 366 0103.