Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Gale: Why It Happens
Keep the motor and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Usually, if your motor has not run, it's emptied and fully rinsed where the vehicle is around Gale. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Not one fluid but two: that's what plenty of newer diesels near Gale and Littleborough run, with diesel for the motor. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There is a filler on every tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the arrangement on many motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the petrol pump, the diesel side gets filled all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. The mistake lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur around Gale?
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from your car, and running dry leads to limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Carriage Drive, or at The Rake Inn on the way home after work.
The old car's cap is where the hand goes — yet a hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That's a second thing: a strange vehicle.
Nothing halts the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Gale or out in Clough.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Gale forecourt or a driveway out in Ealees, take a few seconds on these before any is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally isn't. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- On plenty of vehicles, the size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Check inside your fuel flap: many cars have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- Can't find it beside your diesel inlet? In that case look beneath the bonnet or inside the boot — the owner's manual will say where.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Littleborough? Ask whoever drove it last before you set off, rather than once the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Greater Manchester that is.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of Ferrand Lodge.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. When both share a flap, confirm it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, shut the cap and check a second time that your diesel cap never opened off.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Stage five stays out.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Gale?
Brief list, then. Top of that: the engine remains off. Leave the ignition off too, since on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself runs your fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is pulled from.
On a forecourt — Texaco, Shell or any other — the attendants will normally help roll the vehicle away, when you ask. At home around Gale? Then the vehicle remains where it is.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. On the M62, under 3 miles from Gale, that means the next exit. A short hop across Gale is a smaller job than a run towards Manchester, under 15 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
When our technicians arrive around Gale, what happens?
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Littleborough Community Primary School, close to Holy Trinity or on your own drive. The replies determine the work and our price, so our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and if it has run. On the phone call itself, you hear our quote — before anything else.
Draining your tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the system. More than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: the crystals build up, some metals are attacked, and nothing clears out on its own, however long it is left. The filter flushed or, where needed, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a test of your vehicle. Before we go, we fire it up and confirm that it's running smoothly.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once our technicians get there, as long as your motor hasn't run — and the pumps we use are fine on a live forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. No money in advance; you settle up on the day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Gale, for a moment
Gale is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated on the riverside with a mix of terraced housing. Gale sits at an elevation of 152 metres, approximately 13.4 miles from Manchester and 169.5 miles from London. Gale is surrounded by nearby places such as Clough, Honresfeld, and Durn, and has a population of around 2439 residents.
AdBlue drains around Gale and across Greater Manchester
Honresfeld and Durn are among the places around Gale, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, over OL postcodes. Quote a postcode that starts OL15 9, and our van arrives fastest.
Moving the car is not needed. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to St Barnabas, a lay-by on the way to Whittaker Golf Club, a drive. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of St James.
For Gale drivers, the short version
Tip nothing until you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave the car off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it waits, anywhere around Greater Manchester.