How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Durn
Pause here for a moment if the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then phone 0333 366 0103. In Durn, catching it before your motor runs normally leaves draining and a full flush on the spot. Not happened yet? Further down, the page explains the reasons it takes place and the ways to prevent it for good.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Many modern diesels around Gale, as well as Durn, run on two liquids; the motor gets only your diesel. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where spraying cleans the fumes.
There's a filler for each tank. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Durn: how it occurs
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
Hurry follows from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off Ealees Road, or on the way home in the car park at The Red Lion.
Unfamiliar motors are next, too. Hire cars, new cars and company vehicles put their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap used on the old one.
Nothing halts the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Ealees or the heart of Durn: it takes the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt in Durn or a drive over in Caldermoor. Seconds, no more.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually isn't. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of vehicles carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- Can't find it beside the diesel filler? In that case check below the bonnet or in the boot — the owner's manual will say where.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Littleborough? Check with the person who drove the car last before leaving, not once the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
On the day the light comes on — wherever it is in Greater Manchester — a routine to use.
- Turn off once parked — flat ground, motor off, and not rushed beside West View at the roadside.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap works — once you have located your filler and read it.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and check a second time that your diesel cap was never opened off.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop right there. Don't carry on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Durn already?
Short list, then. Top of it: your engine remains off. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel will not dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of the tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Texaco, Shell or another — the attendants will normally help push your car clear, when you ask. If you are on your own driveway in Durn, leave the car where it is.
When your motor has been run by now, stop somewhere safe then switch it off. On the M62, under 3 miles from Durn, that means the next exit. A short hop across Durn is a smaller job than a run towards Manchester, under 15 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival around Durn, and what takes place next
Anywhere the vehicle came to rest, be it outside Holy Trinity Church of England Primary School, beside Holy Trinity or at home, the van travels to it. Our engineers ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, because the replies determine this work and our quote. Nobody sets off before you've heard the quote by phone.
Emptying your tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of your system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. The filter flushed or, if needed, swapped; fresh diesel in; and then a test of your car. Before we leave, our technicians fire it up and make sure that it's running correctly.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your engine hasn't run take about half an hour once we are there. Your insurer will ask for the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. While we travel, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Durn, briefly
Durn is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated on the riverside with a mix of terraced housing. Durn sits at an elevation of 155 metres, approximately 13 miles from Manchester and 169 miles from London. Durn is close to nearby places such as Ealees, Honresfeld, and Littleborough, and has a population of around 3193 residents.
Durn and Greater Manchester: AdBlue drains across the area
Honresfeld and Littleborough are among the towns around Durn, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, over OL postcodes. Give a postcode that starts OL15 0, and the van arrives fastest.
Your car doesn't need to move. Wherever it stands — beside Hollingworth Visitor Centre, on a lay-by en route to Whittaker Golf Club, on a drive — that's where it is drained. Assuming doesn't help behind St Barnabas, close to a boundary, or somewhere awkward to pin down; phone and check.
Durn people: the short version
Pour nothing till you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere in Greater Manchester, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — and so leave the car off then ring 0333 366 0103.