Croslands Park: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Pause reading a minute if the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. In Croslands Park, finding it before your engine runs usually leaves draining and a thorough flush on the spot. Reading in advance? In that case what follows covers how it happens and what to stop it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds your engine — but plenty of current diesels driven around Croslands Park and South Newbarns hold a second liquid as well. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank has one filler of its own. Many of vehicles have a single flap for the two, while some move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Filling the diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. Much less frequently, the AdBlue side gets filled — mostly from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. It is in the gap that the error lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Croslands Park: how it happens
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Infield Park before work, or in the car park at The Strawberry on the way home.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part stops the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Newbarns or the heart of Croslands Park: it is the same few seconds in both.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt in Croslands Park or a drive over in Yarlside. A few seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally is not. Read it instead of going by position.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of vehicles carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Barrow-In-Furness, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Cumbria that is.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Chetwynd Park.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Never go on to stage five.
Croslands Park: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your motor. Leave the ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself starts the pump. Thinning it with more diesel fails, because AdBlue settles to the base instead of blending — and that is where your fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help roll your car clear of the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Shell, the Asda or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Croslands Park.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Croslands Park sits under 25 miles from the M6; on it, use the next junction. Distance matters — a short hop across Croslands Park is a smaller job than heading under 25 miles to Lancaster — so say about how far it went.
Croslands Park: what takes place when we turn up
By St Paul's CofE Junior School, near St Paul or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Which fluid was put in, the quantity, and if it ran: our engineers ask since those answers set the work and price. Nobody heads out until you have heard our price over the phone.
The system is then flushed thoroughly, once your tank is drained. 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. The filter cleaned or, where needed, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a test of your vehicle. Your engine is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs properly, all before our technicians leave.
If the engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Nothing in advance; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. It is worth looking at your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Croslands Park itself
Croslands Park is a suburban area in southern Cumbria, situated near the coast and approximately 17 miles from Lancaster. Croslands Park has a relatively low elevation of 43 metres and is characterised by semi-detached housing. Croslands Park is close to nearby places such as Newbarns, Beacon Hill, and Hawcoat, and is home to a population of around 3738 residents.
AdBlue drains around Croslands Park, and Cumbria beyond
Being a residential suburb, Croslands Park has the same vans as surrounding areas — Beacon Hill, Hawcoat — right across LA postcodes and the wider area beyond. A postcode starting LA13 9 gets the van to you fastest.
Moving the car is not necessary. We drain it where it is — a side street near Holy Family Catholic Church, a lay-by on the way to The Rootings, a driveway. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Beacon Hill Methodist Church.
For Croslands Park motorists, the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it wherever it stands, wherever around Cumbria: switch the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103.