How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Norley
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and your ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, done just where the car stands around Norley, is usually all it needs when caught before your motor runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds the motor — but many modern diesels driven round Norley and Spring Bank carry another liquid too. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas and cleans it.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Many of vehicles have a single flap for both, while some move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. Far less frequently, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place around Norley
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Hurry comes from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off Montrose Avenue, or on the way home in the car park at Kitt Green Tavern.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip after it has started. Whether it happens in Worsley Hall or the middle of Norley, it's the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Laithwaite or a forecourt in Norley, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Check the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally are not.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Pemberton.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Wherever across Greater Manchester the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of Ribble Drive.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It seems silly. It works.
- The two under one flap? So confirm the cap on the diesel side stays closed before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Leave out stage five entirely.
Norley: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
The short order of things, beginning with no starting the engine. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of the tank, just where fuel is taken from.
Ask the staff to help push the vehicle clear of the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the Esso, the BP or somewhere else. If you are on your own drive in Norley, leave the car where it is.
Already run? Stop once it's safe, then switch off. Leave the M58 — under a mile out of Norley — at the first exit. A short hop across Norley is a smaller job than a run towards Preston, under 25 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
When we get there in Norley, what takes place?
Our van comes to the vehicle anywhere it stopped — your own driveway, near St Francis of Assisi, or outside Westfield Community School. Which fluid was put in, the quantity, and if it ran: our technicians ask since those answers decide both work and quote. On the call itself, you hear the price — ahead of dispatch.
The fuel system is then cleaned thoroughly, after the tank is emptied. 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 comes last: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is cleaned or replaced as needed. We don't leave until it has been started and is running correctly.
If the motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. No money upfront; you settle up that day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. While we travel, have a look at your policy; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Norley
Norley is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated inland at an elevation of 48 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Norley is located near several notable places, including Worsley Hall, Kitt Green, and Marsh Green, and is approximately 15 miles from the city of Preston. Norley has a population of around 7708 residents, and its proximity to major urban centres makes it a desirable place to live. Norley is also relatively close to the regional hub, with easy access to surrounding areas.
AdBlue drains in Norley and across Greater Manchester
Norley is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the places around it, Kitt Green and Marsh Green among them, across the WN postcode area. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting WN5 9.
No need to move the vehicle. Draining takes place right there, be it a driveway, a road near St Cuthbert's Catholic Church, or a lay-by on the way to Central Park. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Marsh Green Community Centre, ring and ask instead of assuming.
Norley people: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, anywhere in Greater Manchester: switch the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103.