Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Higher Audley: Why It Happens
Stop here for a moment when the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then call 0333 366 0103. Around Higher Audley, catching it before your motor runs usually leaves a drain and a thorough flush on the spot. The remainder of this page covers why it occurs and how to make sure it does not — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
No single liquid but two: that's what plenty of modern diesels around Higher Audley and Grimshaw Park carry, with diesel for the motor. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the layout on a lot of motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Diesel gets filled at every filling station visit, again and again. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less commonly. The slip lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Higher Audley: how it takes place
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
On a driveway off Dewhurst Street before work, or in the car park at The Adelphi on the way home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car tells you, and once it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
Next, your hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old motor — since a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
A spout-topped bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, once begun, carries on. Whether it occurs in Queens Park or the middle of Higher Audley, it's the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Whinny Edge or a forecourt in Higher Audley, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of vehicles show what belongs in which filler right there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Ask 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 Blackburn.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
Anywhere in Lancashire the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time in hand — not rushing on the side of Dundee Drive.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, but it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop right there. Do not go on to stage five.
Higher Audley: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Brief order, then. Top of it: the engine remains unstarted. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch it on. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the staff to help push the car away from the pump if you're on a forecourt — the Shell, the Esso or somewhere else. On your own drive around Higher Audley? So the car stays put.
Already run? Stop when it is sensible, then turn off. Higher Audley sits under 3 miles from the M65; on it, take the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Higher Audley is less work than a trip of under 10 miles to Preston, and so tell us.
When our technicians turn up around Higher Audley, what takes place?
Anywhere the car came to rest, be it outside Audley Infant School, near Masjide Moorul or at home, the van comes to it. Which liquid got in, the amount, and whether it ran: we ask because those replies decide both work and price. On the call itself, you are told our price — before dispatch.
Next: draining, then a thorough flush of the entire system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither clears away by itself. Hence it counts more. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Before leaving, we fire it up and make sure that it is running correctly.
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 at night. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Higher Audley itself
Higher Audley is a suburban area in Lancashire, situated near the River Ribble and characterised by its terraced housing stock. Higher Audley sits at an elevation of 137 metres, approximately 9.5 miles south west of Preston, and forms part of the wider Preston urban area. Higher Audley is close to several other local suburbs, including Queens Park and Lower Audley.
AdBlue drains about Higher Audley, and Lancashire beyond
As a residential suburb, Higher Audley has the same vans as nearby places — Park Place, Lower Audley — right through BB postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Quickest of all: give a BB1 1 postcode to our van.
The vehicle does not need to move. Draining takes place right there, whether a driveway, a street by Vue Blackburn, or a lay-by on the way to Queen's Park. Tricky to explain, like the back of The Salvation Army - Blackburn? By a county line? Asking beats guessing, so ring.
The short version for Higher Audley motorists
Read the cap before you pour. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere across Lancashire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — so leave the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103.