Heathwaite: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then set this page down a moment, leave your ignition and motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Usually, if the engine hasn't run, it's drained and thoroughly flushed where the vehicle is in Heathwaite. Not happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page covers the reasons it happens and the ways to prevent it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to the motor — yet many modern diesels seen about Heathwaite and Ferney Green carry another liquid as well. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
Every tank has a filler of its own. Some cars keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have the two side by side behind one flap. Diesel goes in on every forecourt call-out, again and again. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less often, usually from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in that gap that the slip happens.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place in Heathwaite
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things lining up together.
Hurry follows from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off Nelson Road, or heading home in the car park at The Brookside.
New-to-you cars come next, too. Hire cars, new cars and company vehicles place their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap used on the old one.
A spouted bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, after begun, keeps on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Heathwaite or out in Droomer.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in The Common or a forecourt in Heathwaite, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally are not.
- Plenty of cars fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Windermere.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
Anywhere around Cumbria the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Thornthwaite Road, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the car, close the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap never opened off.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Never go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Heathwaite already?
The short order of things, starting with not starting your motor. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch it on. Thinning it with more diesel won't work, because AdBlue settles to the base rather than blending — and that's where the fuel is pulled from.
At a forecourt — Shell, Cosy Logs or another — the staff will normally help roll the car clear, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive around Heathwaite.
Where your engine has run by now, pull over somewhere safe and turn the vehicle off. The next junction means where to leave if you're on the M6, under 15 miles from Heathwaite. A short hop across Heathwaite is a smaller job than a run towards Lancaster, under 25 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
Heathwaite: what occurs when our technicians get there
By St Martin & St Mary Church of England Primary School, near Lakes Christian Centre or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, we come to it. Which liquid got in, the amount, and whether it ran: our technicians ask since the answers set both work and price. During the call itself, you are told the quote — before anything else.
Then the tank is drained and the system cleaned thoroughly. 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 the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. Once the filter is flushed — or replaced, where needed — fresh diesel goes in, and finally the vehicle gets tested. Then we start the car and check it runs correctly before leaving.
If the motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Nothing in advance; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — and so use the wait to check yours.
About Heathwaite
Heathwaite is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Cumbria, with a mix of terraced housing and a population of around 3233 residents. Heathwaite sits at an elevation of 124 metres, near the popular tourist destinations of Windermere and Bowness-on-Windermere. Heathwaite is located approximately 22.6 miles from Lancaster and 229.1 miles from London, making it a relatively remote but accessible community. Heathwaite's riverside setting provides scenic views and outdoor recreational opportunities.
Heathwaite and Cumbria: AdBlue drains across the area
Windermere and Bowness-on-Windermere are among the places around Heathwaite, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, over LA postcodes. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting LA23 2.
No need to move the car. The drain happens right there, be it a drive, a street by Queen's Park Bowling Club, or a lay-by towards Queen's Park. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of War Memorial.
For Heathwaite people, the short version
Pour no AdBlue till you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it sits, anywhere across Cumbria.