Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Dale Brow
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, done right where the vehicle sits in Dale Brow, is usually all it takes when found before your motor runs. 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 car: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds the engine — but many newer diesels seen round Dale Brow and Greendale carry a second liquid as well. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Topping up the diesel side at the pump happens all the time. The AdBlue side is filled far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in that gap that the error lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs around Dale Brow
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Macclesfield Road before work, or in the car park outside Legh Arms on the way home.
Next, your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old motor — since a hire car, a new motor or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
Lastly, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as easily, and once the tip begins, nothing stops it. Whether it happens in Prestbury or the middle of Dale Brow, it's the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt around Dale Brow or a drive over in Tytherington. A few seconds, no more.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of motors have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by the diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Prestbury, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Cheshire that is.
- Turn off after you park — flat ground, engine off, and never rushed by Ashbrook Drive at the roadside.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It does the trick.
- The two under one flap? So make sure the lid on the diesel side is still shut before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and check again that the diesel cap was never opened off.
Discover during the second or third stage that the bottle went in the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Leave out step five entirely.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Dale Brow?
Don't start the motor: that's how the short order of things starts. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch it on. Thinning it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue settles to the base rather than blending — and that's where the fuel is sucked from.
Ask the staff to help push the car clear of the petrol pump if you're on a forecourt — the Shell, the Tesco or somewhere else. On your own drive around Dale Brow? So the car stays where it is.
Already started? Stop when it is safe, then turn off. The next exit is where to come off when you are on the M56, under 10 miles from Dale Brow. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Dale Brow is less work than a trip of under 15 miles to Manchester, and so say.
When we arrive in Dale Brow, what happens?
Outside Prestbury CofE Primary School, close to Prestbury Methodist Church or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our technicians come to it. Both the work and our quote depend on three answers — which fluid, which quantity, and whether it's run — so we ask. During the phone call itself, you are told the price — before anything else.
The system is then flushed thoroughly, once the tank is drained. Much more than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: crystals form, certain metals are attacked, and nothing washes away unaided, however long it is left. A test is at the end: before that, clean diesel is added, and the fuel filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. Before leaving, we fire it up and check that it's running correctly.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor hasn't run need about half an hour after our technicians are there. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Dale Brow itself
Dale Brow is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Cheshire, with a mix of detached housing and a population of around 1161 residents. Dale Brow sits at an elevation of 126 metres, close to nearby places such as Prestbury and Butley Town. Dale Brow is located near the city of Manchester, approximately 13.9 miles away, and is around 149.5 miles from London. Dale Brow remains a residential community with a scenic riverside setting.
AdBlue drains around Dale Brow, and Cheshire beyond
Dale Brow is a residential suburb, and our vans that cover it also work the towns near it, Butley Town and Bradley Mount among them, across the SK postcode area. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting SK10 4.
No need to shift your car. Anywhere it sits — beside Prestbury Village Hall, in a layby heading to Prestbury Golf Club, at home — that is where it is cleared. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Prestbury Bowling Club? By a county line? Checking beats guessing, so phone.
The short version for Dale Brow people
Pour no AdBlue until you have read the cap. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it stands, anywhere in Cheshire: switch the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.