How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Great Eccleston
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case put this page down a moment, leave your ignition and engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. Normally, if your motor has not run, it's emptied and fully flushed where your car sits around Great Eccleston. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Diesel feeds your motor — but many current diesels seen about Great Eccleston and Ratten Row hold another fluid too. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
Different tanks, different fillers. Some motors put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have the two together under one flap. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. That gap is where the slip lives.
Great Eccleston: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
Carelessness rarely causes it. Instead is three things lining up at once.
On a drive off Raikes Road before work, or in the car park outside Black Bull Hotel on the way home: that's where the hurried top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low the vehicle warns you, and once it is gone, limp mode kicks in.
New-to-you vehicles are next, as well. Hire cars, new motors and company motors put their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap it 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, and so nothing stops the pour after it has started. It takes seconds, be it in Little Eccleston or bang in the heart of Great Eccleston.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Look at these before pouring, at a forecourt in Great Eccleston or a driveway out in Elswick. A few seconds, that's all.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Plenty of cars fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says where it is when the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Kirkham & Wesham, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
Anywhere around Lancashire the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of High Street.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It works.
- Both under one flap? So confirm the lid on your diesel side stays shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting your car, shut the cap and check again that your diesel cap was never came off.
Discover during the second or third step that AdBlue went in the wrong tank? That's where you stop. Leave out step five altogether.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Great Eccleston already?
Don't start your engine: that's how the short order of things begins. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel will not weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the bottom of your tank, right where the fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — St Michaels Garage, EG On the Move or any other — the attendants will normally help roll the car away, if you ask. Your own driveway around Great Eccleston is the place it should stay.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next exit means where to come off when you are on the M55, under 5 miles from Great Eccleston. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Great Eccleston is less work than a trip of under 10 miles to Preston, and so tell us.
Our arrival around Great Eccleston, and what happens next
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside St Mary's Catholic Primary School, Great Eccleston, close to Great Eccleston Village Centre or on your own drive. Both the work and our price rest on three replies — which liquid, which amount, and whether it's run — so our technicians ask. You get that price on the phone, before anybody sets off.
The fuel system is then rinsed thoroughly, once your tank is cleared. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. The filter cleaned or, if it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a check of your vehicle. Then we start it and make sure it runs properly before we leave.
Unstarted cars mostly need a half-hour visit from the moment we arrive. The kit is safe on a live forecourt, and quiet enough for a residential street late at night. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Great Eccleston itself
Great Eccleston is a village in Lancashire, situated on the riverside at a low elevation of around 18 metres. Great Eccleston lies near the cities of Preston and Blackpool, and is close to the smaller villages of Little Eccleston and Lane Heads. Great Eccleston has a population of approximately 1495 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
AdBlue drains around Great Eccleston, and Lancashire beyond
Throughout PR postcodes, the teams covering Great Eccleston — a village — work the surrounding locations too, Copp and Lane Heads included. Quote a postcode beginning PR3 0, and our van arrives quickest.
There's no need to shift the car. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Marsh Planting, a side street near St Mary's: our technicians drain the car where it sits. Tricky to explain, like the back of St Annes Parish Church Copp? Close to a county line? Asking beats assuming, so phone.
The short version for Great Eccleston drivers
Before you pour, read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Keep it off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across Lancashire.