Gillbent: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Leave your engine and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Caught before your engine runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Gillbent. Here before the event? Then what follows explains how it happens and what to prevent it ever happening.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Diesel feeds the motor — but many modern diesels seen around Gillbent and Kitts Moss carry another fluid as well. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
There's a filler for each tank. Many of cars have a single flap for the two, whereas others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. Seldom filled, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, tipped by a driver who has to stop and think which filler it needs. Mistakes happen in that gap between them.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Gillbent: how it takes place
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Rushside Road before work, or in the car park outside Pointing Dog on the way home.
Next, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — because a rental car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the pour once it has started. Smithy Green or the heart of Gillbent: it takes the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Gillbent forecourt or a driveway over in Cheadle Hulme, spend a few seconds over these before anything is poured in.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- On plenty of cars, size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — plenty of vehicles mark which belongs in which inlet just there.
- Can't find it beside your diesel inlet? In that case look below the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook says which.
- The previous driver will know. Ask when you collect a rental or fleet car — from Cheadle Hulme's car park, perhaps — not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
When the light comes on, anywhere around Greater Manchester, use this routine.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, motor stopped, and never rushed beside Rushfield Road at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- Both behind one flap? So confirm the lid on your diesel filler stays closed before lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then check once more — confirm the diesel filler stayed shut throughout. After that, start the car.
Discover at the second or third stage that the bottle went in the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Do not go on to step five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Gillbent?
Short list, then. First: the engine stays off. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Diluting it with extra diesel fails, since AdBlue settles to the bottom instead of blending — and that is where your fuel is pulled from.
The staff at BP, Tesco or another forecourt will normally help to push your car clear if asked. If you are on your own drive around Gillbent, leave the car where it stands.
Already started? Stop when it is safe, then turn off. Come off the Roscoe's Spur — under 3 miles out of Gillbent — at the next junction. Distance counts — a quick hop across Gillbent makes a smaller job than driving under 10 miles to Manchester — so say roughly how far it went.
What occurs when we get there in Gillbent
Wherever the vehicle came to rest, whether by Thorn Grove Primary School, beside Grove Lane Baptist Church or on your own drive, the van comes to it. Our engineers ask what got in, about how much, and whether it has run, since those answers determine this work and our quote. On the phone call itself, you hear our quote — before dispatch.
Next: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and none of that clears away unaided. Hence it matters more. The filter flushed or, if needed, replaced; fresh diesel in; and then a test of your car. The engine is fired up next and tested to confirm it runs correctly, all before we head off.
With pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine has not run take roughly half an hour after our engineers are there. Your insurer will ask for an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Before we get there, have a look at your insurance documents; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Gillbent itself
Gillbent is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated approximately 8 miles south of Manchester city centre. Gillbent sits at an elevation of around 82 metres, in a gently undulating landscape of residential communities and open spaces. Gillbent is characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, with nearby amenities and attractions including Smithy Green, Stanley Green, and Bramhall Park.
Gillbent and Greater Manchester: AdBlue drains across the area
Gillbent is a residential suburb, and the teams that cover it also work the towns near it, Stanley Green and Bramhall Park among them, across the SK postcode area. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting SK8 6.
Your car does not need to shift. Draining takes place right there, be it a drive, a road by TK Maxx, or a layby towards South Park. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of 1st Cheadle Hulme Scouts, ring and ask instead of guessing.
The short version for Gillbent drivers
First, the cap; after that, the pour. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Leave the car switched off and phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, across Greater Manchester.