Mill Side: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and your ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. Usually, if your motor hasn't turned, it is drained and thoroughly rinsed where the vehicle sits in Mill Side. The rest of this page covers why it occurs and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you're reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Many modern diesels on the roads about Mill Side and Sampool carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank comes with a filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that's the arrangement on a lot of motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up constantly. The AdBlue side is filled far less commonly, usually from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in that gap that the error happens.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Mill Side: how it happens
Carelessness seldom explains it. What does is three things lining up together.
Haste follows from the warning. The vehicle tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off A590, or heading home in the car park outside The Derby Arms.
Unfamiliar motors come next, as well. Rentals, new vehicles and company cars put their fillers differently, and the hand goes for the cap used on the old one.
Lastly, the bottle goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in as readily, and once the pour begins, no part stops it. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Mill Side or out in Beck Head.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Check these first, on a forecourt around Mill Side or a drive out in Meathop. A few seconds, that's all.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on many vehicles. Look for it.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler is if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Arnside, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Cumbria that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Church Road.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — once you've located the filler and read it.
- The two under a single flap? Then make sure the cap on the diesel side is still closed before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Step five is off limits.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Mill Side already?
The short order of things, beginning with not starting the engine. The fuel pump starts on many diesels as soon as the ignition goes on — and so keep it off. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — BP, Shell or any other — the attendants will normally help push the vehicle away, if you ask. If you're on your own driveway in Mill Side, leave it where it stands.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next junction means the place to come off when you are on the M6, under 10 miles from Mill Side. Mileage counts — a quick hop across Mill Side is a smaller job than heading under 15 miles to Lancaster — so say about how far it went.
What happens when we get there in Mill Side
By Dean Barwick Primary School, near Witherslack Parish Hall or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Which fluid went in, the quantity, and whether it ran: we ask since the answers decide the work and price. On the phone call itself, you are told the quote — before anything else.
Emptying that tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the system. Much more than with petrol, it matters here: the crystals form, certain metals are attacked, and none of that clears away on its own, however long it sits. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. We don't leave until it has been started and is running smoothly.
Unrun cars usually need a half-hour job from the moment we arrive. The equipment is safe on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. Your insurer will ask for 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. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Mill Side itself
Mill Side is a small coastal village in Cumbria, situated near the shores of Morecambe Bay at an elevation of 21 metres. Mill Side lies within a short distance of Lancaster, and its residents have easy access to the city's amenities. Mill Side is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its appeal as a residential location.
AdBlue drains around Mill Side and across Cumbria
Throughout LA postcodes, the teams covering Mill Side — a coastal village — work the nearby locations too, Witherslack and Town End included. Quickest of all: quote a LA11 6 postcode for the van.
Moving the vehicle isn't needed. The drain takes place on the spot, whether a drive, a road by St. Paul's, or a layby towards Buckhouse Wood. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Barwick Hall, ring and ask rather than assuming.
In short, for Mill Side motorists
Tip no AdBlue until you've read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave it off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, throughout Cumbria.