Higher Baxenden: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Leave the motor and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before the motor runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Higher Baxenden. The remainder of this page covers why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds the engine — but plenty of modern diesels seen round Higher Baxenden and Woodnook hold a second fluid too. The exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to clean them, from a separate tank.
There's a filler on every tank. Some vehicles put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have both together under one flap. Diesel gets filled on each filling station visit, again and again. Far less often, the AdBlue side is filled — normally from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. That gap is where the slip lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place in Higher Baxenden
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
Hurry follows from the warning. The vehicle warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a driveway off Glenmore Close, or on the way home in the car park outside The Park.
Unfamiliar vehicles come next, as well. Rentals, new cars and company cars put their fillers differently, and the hand reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
Nothing halts the tip once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Baxenden or the heart of Higher Baxenden: it takes the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Higher Baxenden forecourt or a driveway out in Barnfield, take a couple of seconds over these before any is poured in.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- On plenty of cars, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — many vehicles mark what belongs in which inlet just there.
- The handbook shows which it is when your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- 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 at Accrington.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Lancashire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Ashworth Street, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park then switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two share a flap, confirm it's closed before the bottle comes up.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting your car, close the cap and check again that the diesel cap never opened off.
Discover at the second or third step that AdBlue went into the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Never go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Higher Baxenden?
Short list, then. Top of that: the engine stays off. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch it on. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is pulled from.
The staff at Esso, Shell or any forecourt will normally lend a hand to push your car clear when you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Higher Baxenden.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. On the M65, under 3 miles from Higher Baxenden, that means the next exit. A short hop across Higher Baxenden is a smaller job than a run towards Preston, under 15 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
When our technicians arrive in Higher Baxenden, what happens?
Anywhere the vehicle came to rest, be it outside Baxenden St John's Church of England Primary School, near Church of St John the Baptist or on your own drive, our van comes to it. The answers settle the work and the price, and so we ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it's run. You get that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out.
The system is then flushed thoroughly, after that tank is emptied. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and neither clears away unaided. That is why it matters more. The filter cleaned or, if it must be, swapped; fresh diesel in; then a check of your vehicle. We don't go until it has been started and is running correctly.
If your engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Higher Baxenden, for a moment
Higher Baxenden is a suburban area in Lancashire, situated near the River Hyndburn and characterised by semi-detached housing. Higher Baxenden sits at an elevation of 224 metres, overlooking the surrounding countryside. Higher Baxenden is located near several smaller communities, including Baxenden and Lower Baxenden, and is within commuting distance of Preston.
AdBlue drains across Lancashire, Higher Baxenden included
Lower Baxenden and Green Haworth are among the places near Higher Baxenden, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, throughout BB postcodes. A postcode starting BB5 2 gets our van to you fastest.
Your car does not need to move. Draining happens right there, be it a drive, a road near Haworth Art Gallery, or a lay-by on the way to Haworth Park. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Baxenden Cricket Club? Close to a border? Checking beats guessing, and so phone.
The short version for Higher Baxenden drivers
Tip nothing until you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere in Lancashire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway — and so leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103.