AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Hollin Bank: Why It Happens and How to Avoid It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. Normally, if your engine hasn't run, it's drained and fully rinsed where the vehicle is in Hollin Bank. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads about Hollin Bank and Longshaw carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. The exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to fresh them, from its own tank.
Every tank has a filler of its own. Many of motors share a single flap for both, while some move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump happens constantly. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less commonly. The error lives in that gap.
Hollin Bank: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Grafton Street before work, or in the car park at Fox & Hounds on the way home.
Then the vehicle is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Third, the spout goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as readily, and once the pour begins, no part halts it. The Wrangling or the heart of Hollin Bank: it takes the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these first, at a forecourt around Hollin Bank or a driveway over in Bank Top. A few seconds, that's all.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many motors carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows which it lives when the filler is not next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- 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 at Mill Hill (Lancs).
AdBlue top-ups that never reach 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 Exeter Street, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park and switch off first.
- 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 share a flap, confirm it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Finish once that tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip slowly through its own spout.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Don't go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Hollin Bank already?
Brief order, then. Top of it: the motor remains off. Do not switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of the tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
At a forecourt — Texaco, Shell or any other — the staff will normally help push your car away, when you ask. If you're on your own driveway in Hollin Bank, leave it where it sits.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. The next exit means where to leave when you are on the M65, under 3 miles from Hollin Bank. A short hop across Hollin Bank is a smaller job than a run towards Preston, under 10 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
What takes place when our engineers arrive around Hollin Bank
Our engineers come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside St Luke and St Philips Church of England Primary School, close to Thwaites Empire Theatre or on your own driveway. What fluid went in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our technicians ask since those replies decide both work and price. You hear that price on the phone, before anybody heads out.
Emptying your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the fuel system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither clears out by itself. Hence it matters more. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Next our technicians start the car and confirm it runs smoothly before we leave.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after our technicians arrive, provided your motor has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a live forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once this job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Hollin Bank
Hollin Bank is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Lancashire, with a mix of terraced housing and other residential properties. Hollin Bank sits at an elevation of 103 metres, approximately 8.5 miles from Preston and 183.2 miles from London. Hollin Bank forms part of the wider residential area around Preston, with nearby places including The Wrangling and Mill Hill.
AdBlue drains around Hollin Bank, and Lancashire beyond
Over BB postcodes, our vans covering Hollin Bank — a residential suburb — work the nearby places too, Mill Hill and Nova Scotia among them. A postcode starting BB2 4 gets our van to you fastest.
Shifting the vehicle is not necessary. The drain takes place on the spot, be it a driveway, a street by St Aidan’s Church, or a layby on the way to Griffin Park. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Bethesda, ring and ask instead of guessing.
In short, for Hollin Bank motorists
Read the cap before you tip. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Leave it off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, throughout Lancashire.