Helmshore: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case set this page down for now, keep the ignition and motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Usually, when the motor has not run, it's drained and thoroughly flushed where the vehicle sits in Helmshore. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Many newer diesels on the roads around Helmshore and Waterfoot carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. The exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to clean them, from a separate tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Some vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place both side by side behind one flap. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally goes in from a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think which filler to use. The mistake grows in the gap between the two.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Helmshore: how it takes place
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Hurry comes from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off Gregory Fold, or heading home in the car park at Station Hotel.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — yet a hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That's a second thing: a new car.
Third, the bottle goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in just as easily, and after the pour begins, nothing stops it. Flax Moss or the heart of Helmshore: it is the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A few seconds is all these take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Ewood Bridge or a forecourt around Helmshore.
- Read the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually are not.
- On many vehicles, size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Lift the flap and look for a label — plenty of motors mark which goes in each inlet just there.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler is if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The previous driver knows. Ask as you collect a hire car or company car — at Entwistle's car park, say — rather than when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
When the light goes on, anywhere around Lancashire, use this routine.
- Pull in somewhere level, engine off, with time to spare — never rushing on the side of Broadway.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? Then stop right there. Stage five is off limits.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Helmshore?
Don't start the engine: that is how the short order of things starts. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the car on. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
Ask the staff to help roll the car away from the pump if you are at a forecourt — the Tesco, the Texaco or somewhere else. If you are on your own drive around Helmshore, leave it where it sits.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Leave the M66 — under 3 miles out of Helmshore — at the first junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Salford, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Helmshore.
Helmshore: what happens when we turn up
Our van reaches the vehicle anywhere it has come to rest — your own drive, beside St Thomas's Musbury, or by Helmshore Primary School. Those replies settle this work and the price, so our engineers ask what got in, about how much, and if it's run. During the phone call itself, you hear our price — before dispatch.
Then your tank is cleared and your system cleaned thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more here than with petrol. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
If your motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. While we travel, have a look at your policy; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Helmshore, briefly
Helmshore is a suburban area in Lancashire, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of 201 metres. Helmshore has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly characterised by detached homes. Helmshore is located near several other small places, including Flax Moss, Helmcroft, and Syke Side, and is approximately 14.5 miles from the city of Salford. Helmshore is a relatively small community, with a population of around 4964 people.
Helmshore and Lancashire: AdBlue drains across the area
Helmcroft and Syke Side are among the towns around Helmshore, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, throughout BB postcodes. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting BB4 4.
There's no need to shift the car. Anywhere it stands — near St Thomas' Church Hall, in a lay-by en route to Rossendale Golf Club, at home — that is where it gets drained. Guessing won't help at the back of Haslingden Sports Centre, on a border, or somewhere hard to describe; ring and ask.
In short, for Helmshore drivers
Pour nothing till you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it sits, anywhere across Lancashire.