AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Longford: How It Happens and How to Prevent It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and the ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. Around Longford, finding it before your engine runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush on the spot. Here before the event? In that case the rest explains why it comes about and what to prevent it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Plenty of newer diesels around Callands, as well as Longford, carry on two liquids; the engine takes only the diesel. AdBlue goes to the 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. Plenty of vehicles share a single flap for the two, whereas others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump happens constantly. The AdBlue side is filled far less frequently, normally from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
Longford: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the car, and running out means limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Chiltern Road, or at The Poplars on the way home after work.
Then the car is unfamiliar. 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.
No part halts the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's seconds, whether out in Hulme or right in the centre of Longford.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Winwick or a forecourt around Longford, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- Plenty of vehicles give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Look inside your fuel flap: many motors have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler is if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Ask 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 at Warrington Central.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
On the day the warning appears — wherever you are around Cheshire — a simple routine to use.
- Turn off after you park — flat ground, engine stopped, and never rushed by Sandy Lane West on the verge.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud while unscrewing it. It sounds silly. 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.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, and look once more — making sure the diesel filler stayed shut throughout. Only then, start the car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Do not go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Longford already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the engine. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the car on. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help roll the vehicle away from the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Tesco, the Shell or anywhere else. On your own drive around Longford? Then the vehicle stays put.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your motor has already run. Come off the M62 — under a mile out of Longford — at the first exit. A short hop across Longford is a smaller job than a run towards Salford, under 15 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
What happens when we get there around Longford
We come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside St Stephen's Catholic Primary School, close to Hebron Church or on your own drive. We ask what went in, about how much, and if it's run, since the replies decide this work and our price. The price is given on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Draining the tank comes next, then a full flush of your system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of it clears out by itself. Hence it matters more. Once the filter has been flushed — or renewed, where needed — fresh diesel is added, and finally your car is tested. We do not go until it has been started and is running properly.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour after our engineers arrive, as long as your motor has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. The insurer will ask for an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Longford, briefly
Longford is a suburban area in Cheshire, situated on the riverside with an elevation of around 12 metres. Longford lies near the cities of Salford and Manchester, and is close to nearby places such as Hulme and Winwick Quay. Longford has a population of approximately 7180 people, predominantly living in terraced housing. Longford is located about 167.8 miles northwest of London, in the North West region of England.
AdBlue drains in Longford and across Cheshire
Over WA postcodes, the vans that cover Longford — a residential suburb — work the nearby spots too, Dallam and Winwick Quay among them. Quote a postcode that starts WA2 9, and the van arrives quickest.
Your car remains where it is. Anywhere it stands — beside Life Church Bethel Building, on a lay-by en route to Longford Park, at home — that's where it gets emptied. Tricky to explain, like the back of Tru Ninja? By a border? Asking is better than assuming, and so ring.
The short version for Longford people
Read the cap before you pour. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it stands, wherever in Cheshire: keep the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.