Greenfield: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Pause here for a moment when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then phone 0333 366 0103. Usually, if your engine has not turned, it's drained and fully cleaned where the vehicle sits in Greenfield. Reading in advance? Then the rest explains why it happens and how to stop it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of newer diesels around Fur Lane, as well as Greenfield, carry on two fluids; your motor gets only the diesel. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, side by side: that's the layout on many motors. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. Diesel goes in at every filling station visit, week in, week out. Far less frequently, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. It's in the gap that the slip lives.
Greenfield: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
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 Sykes Close before work, or in the car park outside King William IV on the way home.
Then the vehicle is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once begun, carries on. Whether it occurs in Boarshurst or the middle of Greenfield, it's the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Be it a Greenfield forecourt or a drive over in Lower Arthurs, spend a few seconds over these before any goes in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- On plenty of motors, the size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside your fuel flap: many motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler is if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside the nearest station.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Greater Manchester that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Chew Brook Drive.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- The two behind one flap? So confirm the lid on the diesel side stays shut before lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and check once more — making sure the diesel cap stayed shut throughout. Only then, start the car.
Find during the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Skip stage five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Greenfield?
Brief order, then. First: your engine stays off. Leave the ignition off too, since on many diesels switching it on alone runs your fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
At a forecourt — Gulf, Shell or any other — the attendants will normally help roll the vehicle clear, when you ask. If you are on your own drive around Greenfield, leave it where it sits.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Leave the M60 — under 10 miles out of Greenfield — at the first exit. A short hop across Greenfield is a smaller job than a run towards Manchester, under 15 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
What occurs when our technicians arrive in Greenfield
Anywhere the vehicle has stopped, whether outside Greenfield St Mary's CofE School, near Greenfield Cricket Club or on your own drive, the van comes to it. Both the work and the quote depend on three replies — which fluid, what amount, and if it's run — so we ask. No one heads out until you've heard the price by phone.
Next: draining, then a full flush of the entire system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither clears away unaided. Hence it counts more. Once your filter has been flushed — or replaced, where required — fresh diesel goes in, and finally your vehicle is tested. After that our engineers start the car and confirm it runs correctly before leaving.
With pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your engine has not run take roughly half an hour after our technicians are there. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Greenfield, briefly
Greenfield is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated on the riverside with a mix of terraced housing and other residential properties. Greenfield sits at an elevation of 163 metres, approximately 10.6 miles east of Manchester, and is close to nearby places such as Boarshurst and Waterside. Greenfield is part of a larger urban area, but retains a distinct character as a residential community with its own local amenities.
AdBlue drains in Greenfield and across Greater Manchester
Over OL postcodes, our vans covering Greenfield — a residential suburb — work the surrounding spots too, Dacres and Waterside among them. Quote a postcode beginning OL3 7, and our van arrives quickest.
The car doesn't need to shift. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Churchill Playing Fields, a side street near Greenfield Library: our engineers drain the car where it stands. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Greenfield Methodist Church.
Greenfield motorists: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave the car switched off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across Greater Manchester.