High Lane: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then set this page down a moment, keep your ignition and motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out just where your vehicle stands around High Lane, is usually what it needs if found before the engine runs. 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 vehicle need its own filler?
Diesel goes to the engine — yet plenty of current diesels driven around High Lane and Higher Poynton hold a second liquid too. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the gas to fresh it, from a separate tank.
Different tanks, different fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on a lot of motors. On others, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Filling the diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less often, normally from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens around High Lane
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
Hurry comes from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off Andrew Lane, or heading home in the car park at Red Lion.
Next, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old car — since a hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip after it has started. Whether it happens in Windlehurst or the middle of High Lane, it is the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A few seconds is all these take — so check them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Disley or a forecourt in High Lane.
- Position misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- Plenty of cars give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Look inside the fuel flap: many vehicles carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Middlewood? Ask whoever drove it last before leaving, not once the light goes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Greater Manchester that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Willow Road.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It works.
- Both behind a single flap? Then confirm the cap on the diesel filler is still shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Pour 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 car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Don't carry on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in High Lane?
Do not start the motor: that is how the short order of things begins. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch it on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
On a forecourt — BP, Esso or any other — the attendants will normally help push the car clear, when you ask. Your own drive around High Lane is the place it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. Leave the M60 — under 5 miles out of High Lane — at the next exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Manchester, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across High Lane.
What takes place when we turn up in High Lane
Anywhere the vehicle has stopped, be it by High Lane Primary School, near High Lane Library or on your own drive, our van comes to it. Both the work and the price depend on three replies — which liquid, which quantity, and if it's run — so we ask. That price comes over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Emptying the tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and none of that washes out unaided. Hence it matters more. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Then our engineers start the car and check it runs smoothly before we go.
Unrun cars mostly need a half-hour job after the moment we arrive. The equipment is fine on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. 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, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About High Lane, for a moment
High Lane is a village in Greater Manchester, situated on the River Mersey at an elevation of 177 metres. High Lane has a mix of old and new housing, with detached homes being the predominant type, and is located near other small villages such as Windlehurst and Middlewood. High Lane is close to the city of Manchester, approximately 10.8 miles away, and is part of the wider North West region of England. High Lane has a population of around 2401 residents.
AdBlue drains around High Lane, and Greater Manchester beyond
As a village, High Lane shares its vans surrounding places — Middlewood, Hawk Green — right across SK postcodes and the wider area beyond. A postcode starting SK6 8 gets our van to you fastest.
Moving your car is not needed. Anywhere it sits — near St Thomas' Church, on a layby heading to Hartley Woods, at home — that is where it gets drained. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Woodside Tennis Club.
In short, for High Lane drivers
Read the cap before you tip. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it waits, anywhere in Greater Manchester.