Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Gee Cross: Why It Happens
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case set this page down for now, leave the ignition and motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, carried out right where the vehicle stands around Gee Cross, is normally what it needs if caught before your motor runs. Reading in advance? Then what follows explains how it comes about and how to stop it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of current diesels on the roads round Gee Cross and Godley Hill carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. The exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to clean them, from a separate tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on a lot of vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in your boot instead. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side gets filled — mostly from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs around Gee Cross
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
On a driveway off Buckley Close before work, or in the car park outside The Grapes heading home: that's where the rushed top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle tells you, and once it is empty, limp mode kicks in.
Next, your hand goes for the cap it knew on the old motor — since a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
Lastly, the bottle fits: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in as easily, and after the tip starts, no part stops it. Whether it occurs in Backbower or the middle of Gee Cross, it's the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Greave or a forecourt around Gee Cross, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of motors show which belongs in each filler just there.
- The handbook says where it lives when the filler isn't next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Woodley, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Greater Manchester that is.
- Turn off after you park — flat ground, engine stopped, and never rushed by Hollins Avenue at the roadside.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Discover during the second or third step that the bottle went into the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Don't carry on to step five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Gee Cross already?
Do not start your engine: that's how the short order of things starts. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment your ignition goes on — so keep it off. Filling up with diesel won't dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of your tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
The attendants at Shell, Morrisons or another forecourt will normally help to push the car clear if you ask. At home in Gee Cross? Then the car remains where it is.
Where your motor has run by now, stop safely and switch the car off. Leave the M67 — under 3 miles out of Gee Cross — at the first exit. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Gee Cross makes a smaller job than heading under 10 miles towards Manchester — so say roughly how far it went.
What happens when we turn up around Gee Cross
Outside Gee Cross Holy Trinity CofE Primary School, near Gee X Community Centre or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, we come to it. The replies decide the work and our price, and so our engineers ask what got in, about how much, and if it's run. No one heads out until you have heard the quote by phone.
Your system is then flushed thoroughly, once the tank is cleared. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. Filter cleaned or, if needed, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a check of your car. We don't go until it has been started and is running correctly.
If the engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Gee Cross
Gee Cross is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated approximately 7.8 miles east of Manchester city centre. Gee Cross sits at an elevation of around 165 metres, near the rural landscapes of Werneth Low and Woodley. Gee Cross has a population of around 5077 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Gee Cross is also close to nearby neighbourhoods such as Backbower.
AdBlue drains across Greater Manchester, Gee Cross included
Gee Cross is a residential suburb, and the teams that cover it also work the places around it, Werneth Low and Woodley among them, across the SK postcode area. Quickest of all: give a SK14 5 postcode for the van.
No need to move the car. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Holy Trinity Church, a lay-by on the way to Sam Redfern Green, a drive. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Cold War Bunker? By a county line? Checking beats guessing, and so ring.
Gee Cross drivers: the short version
Pour nothing till you've read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it stands, anywhere across Greater Manchester: keep the car off then call 0333 366 0103.