How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Knott End-on-Sea
Stop reading for a moment when the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. Normally, when your motor has not turned, it's emptied and fully purged where the car is around Knott End-on-Sea. The remainder of this page explains why it occurs and how to ensure it does not — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Not one fluid but two: that is how plenty of modern diesels near Knott End-on-Sea and Preesall Park run, with diesel for your motor. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, and there a spray treats the gas.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of motors have a single flap for both, while others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is fuelled at the petrol pump all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally goes in from a bottle, tipped by a driver who must stop and think which filler it needs. It is in the gap that the slip lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Knott End-on-Sea: how it takes place
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the vehicle, and letting it run dry means limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Lancaster Road, perhaps outside The Squash on the way home that evening.
Then the vehicle is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, after started, carries on. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Knott End-on-Sea or out in Pilling Lane.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Fleetwood or a forecourt around Knott End-on-Sea.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally don't.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on many motors. Look for it.
- The handbook shows where it is when your filler isn't next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Poulton-Le-Fylde? Check with the person who drove it last before you set off, rather than once the light goes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Lancashire that is.
- Switch off once parked — level ground, motor off, and not in a rush beside Wyre View on the verge.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you've 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.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then check once more — confirm your diesel filler stayed closed throughout. Only then, start the car.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? Then stop just there. Step five is out.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Knott End-on-Sea already?
Brief list, then. First: the motor stays unstarted. Don't switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the Asda or the Shell, ask the staff to help push the vehicle away from the pump. On your own drive around Knott End-on-Sea? Then the car stays put.
Where the engine has been run already, pull over somewhere safe then turn the car off. Knott End-on-Sea sits under 10 miles from the M55; on it, use the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Knott End-on-Sea is smaller work than a trip of under 15 miles towards Lancaster, and so tell us.
Knott End-on-Sea: what occurs when our technicians arrive
Our engineers come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside St. Mary's Catholic Primary School, Fleetwood, close to Knott End-on-Sea Methodist Church or on your own drive. Those replies settle this work and the price, and so we ask what was put in, about how much, and if it's run. During the phone call itself, you hear our price — before anything else.
Then your tank is drained and the system purged thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. The engine is started next and tested to confirm it runs correctly, all before our engineers go.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor has not run take roughly half an hour once our engineers arrive. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours once the job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. It is worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Knott End-on-Sea itself
Knott End-on-Sea is a small coastal village in Lancashire, situated on the north shore of the River Wyre estuary. Knott End-on-Sea has a low elevation of around 9 metres above sea level and is located near the villages of Pilling Lane and Preesall. Knott End-on-Sea remains a quiet residential community with a mix of housing types, predominantly semi-detached homes.
AdBlue drains about Knott End-on-Sea, and Lancashire beyond
As a coastal village, Knott End-on-Sea shares its vans nearby areas — Preesall, Marsh Side Farm — all the way through FY postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Give a postcode that starts FY6 0, and the van gets there quickest.
The vehicle does not need to shift. Wherever it stands — near St Bernard's, on a layby en route to Knott End Golf Course, on a drive — that is where it gets drained. Guessing doesn't help at the back of Knott End Library, on a border, or somewhere awkward to pin down; phone and check.
Knott End-on-Sea motorists: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Lancashire.