Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Fitton Hill
Keep the motor and ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain and a full flush, done just where the car stands around Fitton Hill, is normally what it needs when caught before the motor runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Not one liquid but two: that is what many newer diesels around Fitton Hill and Hathershaw run, with diesel for your motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of cars have a single flap for the two, while others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. Far less often, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Fitton Hill: how it occurs
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
Hurry comes from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off Sutherland Close, or heading home in the car park at Daisyfield Inn.
Then your 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 gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip once it has started. Whether it occurs in Bardsley or the middle of Fitton Hill, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt in Fitton Hill or a drive out in Moss Grove. Seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually isn't. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — plenty of cars show which goes in each filler just there.
- The handbook says which it is when the filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check when you pick up a hire car or fleet car — from Ashton-Under-Lyne's car park, say — rather than when the warning appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Greater Manchester that is.
- Switch off once parked — level ground, engine off, and never rushed beside Marland Fold Lane at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Spot at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? Then stop just there. Step five stays off limits.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Fitton Hill already?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting the engine. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the vehicle on. Filling up with diesel will not thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — Texaco, another forecourt nearby or another — the staff will usually help push the car away, when you ask. On your own drive in Fitton Hill? Then your car stays where it is.
When the motor has been run by now, pull over safely and turn the vehicle off. The next junction is where to come off when you're on the M60, under 3 miles from Fitton Hill. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Fitton Hill is less a job than a trip of under 10 miles towards Manchester, so tell us.
What occurs when we arrive in Fitton Hill
Our van reaches the car anywhere it stopped — your own drive, beside War Memorial, or outside Holy Rosary RC Primary School, a Voluntary Academy. What fluid got in, the quantity, and if it ran: our engineers ask because the answers decide both work and price. You hear that quote on the phone, before anyone sets off.
Then that tank is drained and your system purged thoroughly. 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. Filter cleaned or, if it must be, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a test of the car. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once our engineers arrive, as long as your motor hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet after dark beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Fitton Hill
Fitton Hill is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated approximately 6 miles east of Manchester city centre. Fitton Hill sits at an elevation of around 137 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation in the area. Fitton Hill is located near several other suburban areas, including Bardsley and Hollins Green, and is about 162 miles northwest of London.
Fitton Hill and Greater Manchester: AdBlue drains across the area
Fitton Hill is a residential suburb, and our vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Hollins Green and Knott Lanes among them, across the OL postcode area. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting OL8 3.
There's no need to shift the vehicle. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street close to Manor Park, a lay-by on the way to Werneth Golf Course, a driveway. Assuming doesn't help at the back of Holy Rosary Church, on a boundary, or somewhere awkward to describe; ring and check.
In short, for Fitton Hill people
Read the cap before you pour. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it wherever it stands, wherever across Greater Manchester: switch the car off then call 0333 366 0103.