How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Heaton Moor
Keep your engine and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before the motor runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Heaton Moor. The remainder of this page covers why it takes place and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads around Heaton Moor and Burnage carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to clean them, from a separate tank.
Different tanks, separate fillers. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Topping up the diesel side at the pump happens all the time. Far less commonly, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. It is in that gap that the mistake lives.
Heaton Moor: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Carelessness rarely causes it. What does is three things coming up together.
Haste follows from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a driveway off Gibsons Road, or on the way home in the car park at The Crown.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing stops the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it occurs in Heaton Norris or the middle of Heaton Moor, it is the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Heaton Moor forecourt or a driveway out in Lancashire Hill, take a few seconds on these before anything goes in.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — many cars mark what goes in each inlet just there.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check when you pick up a hire car or fleet car — from Heaton Chapel's car park, perhaps — not when the warning comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
The day the light goes on, wherever around Greater Manchester, follow this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Shaw Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, make sure it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Finish once the tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip slowly using the own spout.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Discover during the second or third stage that the bottle went in the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Don't go on to step five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Heaton Moor?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with not starting the motor. The fuel pump runs on many diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — and so leave it off. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it is the Esso or the another forecourt nearby, ask the attendants to help push your car clear of the pump. At home in Heaton Moor? Then the car remains where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the engine has already run. On the M60, under a mile from Heaton Moor, that means the next exit. A short hop across Heaton Moor is a smaller job than a run towards Manchester, under 5 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
When we arrive around Heaton Moor, what takes place?
Wherever your car came to rest, whether outside Norris Bank Primary School, near St Paul's or at home, our van travels to it. Both the work and our price rest on three replies — which fluid, which amount, and if it's run — so our technicians ask. During the phone call itself, you are told our price — ahead of dispatch.
Then the tank is cleared and the fuel system rinsed thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. The motor is fired up next and checked to make sure it runs properly, all before we head off.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour after our technicians get there, as long as the motor hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. The insurer usually wants the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours once the job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. It's worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Heaton Moor itself
Heaton Moor is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated approximately 4.6 miles south of Manchester city centre. Heaton Moor sits at an elevation of around 76 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Heaton Moor is located near other similar areas, including Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, and Heaton Mersey, and is about 158 miles northwest of London.
AdBlue drains round Heaton Moor, and Greater Manchester beyond
Heaton Moor is a residential suburb, and the teams that cover it also work the places around it, Heaton Chapel and Heaton Mersey among them, across the SK postcode area. Quote a postcode beginning SK4 4, and the van gets there quickest.
Your car doesn't need to shift. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Heaton Moor United Church, a lay-by on the way to St Andrew's Field, a driveway. Awkward to pin down, like the back of St Mary & St Mina Coptic Orthodox Church? Close to a county line? Checking is better than guessing, and so ring.
The short version for Heaton Moor people
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Leave the vehicle switched off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, throughout Greater Manchester.