Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Howarth Cross: Why It Happens
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Around Howarth Cross, finding it before the engine runs normally means a drain and a full flush where it stands. 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 doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Many newer diesels on the roads round Howarth Cross and Hurstead carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
Each tank has one filler of its own. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, the diesel side gets filled all the time. Seldom topped up, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, tipped by someone who has to stop and think what filler it needs. It's in that gap that the slip happens.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank take place around Howarth Cross?
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Howarth Cross Street, or outside The Bulls Head on the way home that evening.
Unfamiliar vehicles come next, too. Rentals, new cars and company vehicles put their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap used on the old one.
Lastly, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in just as easily, and once the tip starts, no part halts it. Buckley or the middle of Howarth Cross: it takes the same few seconds either way.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Look at these before pouring, at a forecourt around Howarth Cross or a drive out in Mayfield. A few seconds, no more.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue ones are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally aren't.
- On many motors, size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- Can't find it next to your diesel filler? In that case check beneath the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook will say where.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Smithy Bridge? Check with whoever drove it last before leaving, not once the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
For the day the warning appears — wherever you are around Greater Manchester — a simple routine to follow.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never rushing on the side of Prescott Street.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you have found the filler and read it.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then check again — confirm the diesel cap remained shut throughout. Only then, start your car.
Find at the second or third step that the bottle went in the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Do not go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Howarth Cross?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. Don't switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Thinning it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of mixing — and that's where your fuel is sucked from.
At a forecourt — Shell, Texaco or any other — the attendants will usually help roll the vehicle clear, when you ask. Your own drive around Howarth Cross is the place it should stay.
Where your motor has run already, pull over somewhere safe and switch the vehicle off. The next exit means the place to leave if you are on the M62, under 3 miles from Howarth Cross. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Howarth Cross is smaller work than a trip of under 15 miles towards Manchester, so say.
Howarth Cross: what takes place when we turn up
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Hamer Community Primary School, near Smallbridge Library or on your own drive. What liquid was put in, the quantity, and if it ran: we ask since the replies set both work and price. On the call itself, you hear the price — ahead of dispatch.
Draining the tank comes next, followed by a full flush of your system. More than with petrol, it matters here: the crystals build up, certain metals are attacked, and none of that washes out unaided, however long it is left. Testing is at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is cleaned or replaced if necessary. Next our technicians start it and make sure it runs smoothly before we leave.
If the motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It's worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Howarth Cross
Howarth Cross is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated near the riverside and characterised by its predominantly terraced housing. Howarth Cross sits at an elevation of 147 metres, approximately 11 miles from Manchester, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Buckley and Smallbridge. Howarth Cross forms part of the wider urban landscape of Greater Manchester, with its residents being around 169 miles from London.
Howarth Cross and Greater Manchester: AdBlue drains across the area
As a residential suburb, Howarth Cross shares its vans surrounding places — Smallbridge, Clover Hall — right across OL postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Give a postcode beginning OL16 2, and our van gets there quickest.
No need to shift the car. Draining happens right there, whether a drive, a road near Smallbridge St John, or a layby towards Wardle War Memorial Garden. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of All Saints Church.
Howarth Cross motorists: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Keep the car off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, across Greater Manchester.