Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Lane Ends
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then set this page aside for now, leave your ignition and engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Lane Ends. Nothing happened yet? Below, the page explains the reasons it happens and the how to avoid it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many modern diesels on the roads about Lane Ends and Cherry Tree carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Many of vehicles share a single flap for the two, whereas others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. Mistakes happen in that gap between them.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place in Lane Ends
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
On a drive off Sandy Lane before work, or in the car park at Foresters Arms on the way home: that's where the rushed top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and once it is gone, limp mode follows.
The old car's cap is where your hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That is the second thing: a strange motor.
Lastly, the bottle goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in as easily, and once the tip starts, nothing stops it. Whether it happens in Greave or the middle of Lane Ends, it is the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Be it a Lane Ends forecourt or a drive over in Tang, spend a few seconds over these before anything is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually isn't. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many vehicles carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says where it lives when the 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 pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Romiley.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
Anywhere across Greater Manchester the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Turn off after you park — level ground, motor off, and never in a rush by Pinfold Lane at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Find during the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Stage five stays out.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Lane Ends already?
Short list, then. First: your engine remains unstarted. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the vehicle on. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of the tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — Esso, Morrisons or any other — the attendants will usually help roll the car clear, if you ask. If you are on your own driveway in Lane Ends, leave it where it stands.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Lane Ends lies under 3 miles from the M60; on it, take the first junction. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Lane Ends is smaller a job than a run of under 10 miles towards Manchester, so tell us.
Lane Ends: what occurs when we get there
We come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Greave Primary School, near Romiley Cricket Club or on your own driveway. Those answers decide the work and the quote, so our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it has run. That quote is given over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Next: a drain, then a thorough flush of the entire system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Testing is last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the filter is cleaned or changed as needed. Then our technicians start it and make sure it runs correctly before we leave.
If your motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. 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 policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Lane Ends and where it is
Lane Ends is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated approximately 7.8 miles from Manchester city centre. Lane Ends has a population of around 3552 people and is characterised by semi-detached housing. Lane Ends is located near other local places such as Greave, Top-o-th Hill, and Romiley, in the inland area of the North West region. Lane Ends sits at an elevation of 151 metres, relatively close to the urban hub of Manchester.
AdBlue drains across Greater Manchester, Lane Ends included
Top-o-th Hill and Romiley are among the towns around Lane Ends, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, over SK postcodes. Fastest of all: give a SK6 4 postcode for our van.
The car does not need to move. The drain takes place right there, whether a driveway, a street near The Forum, or a lay-by towards Romiley Park. Awkward to explain, like the back of The Scout Association? By a border? Checking is better than assuming, and so phone.
In short, for Lane Ends people
Tip no AdBlue till you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave the car off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it stands, anywhere around Greater Manchester.