AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Parr Brow: Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Usually, if your engine hasn't turned, it's drained and thoroughly purged where your car sits around Parr Brow. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Not one liquid but two: that's what many modern diesels around Parr Brow and Higher Green run, with diesel for the engine. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, where a spray treats the gas.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others have both side by side under one flap. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. The AdBlue side is filled far less commonly, normally from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur around Parr Brow?
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the car, and running out leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Makants Close, perhaps at Colliers Arms on the way home that evening.
The old car's cap is where the hand goes — yet a hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That is the second factor: a strange motor.
No part halts the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Parr Brow or out in Mosley Common.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these first, on a forecourt in Parr Brow or a drive over in Peel. Seconds, that's all.
- Read the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally aren't.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of motors mark which belongs in which inlet just there.
- Can't see it beside your diesel inlet? In that case check beneath the bonnet or in the boot — the owner's manual will say where.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Walkden.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
On the day the light appears — wherever it is around Greater Manchester — a routine to use.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Wellington Drive.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at the second or third stage that the bottle went into the wrong tank? That's where you stop. Never go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Parr Brow already?
The short order of things, starting with no starting the motor. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — so keep it off. Thinning it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue settles to the base rather than blending — and that is where your fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Esso, another forecourt nearby or any other — the attendants will usually help push the car clear, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway in Parr Brow.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. On the M61, under 3 miles from Parr Brow, that means the next junction. About how far did it go? Crossing Parr Brow is smaller a job than a run of under 10 miles to Salford, and so tell us.
Our arrival around Parr Brow, and what takes place next
Anywhere the car came to rest, be it by Garrett Hall Primary School, beside St John or on your own drive, our van comes to it. Both the work and the quote depend on three replies — which liquid, which quantity, and if it has run — so our technicians ask. You hear that quote by phone, before anybody sets off.
Emptying the tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither clears out by itself. Hence it counts more. Testing is at the end: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is flushed or changed as needed. Before we go, our technicians start the car and make sure that it's running correctly.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where your motor hasn't run take roughly half an hour after our engineers arrive. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both once the job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. It is worth checking your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Parr Brow
Parr Brow is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 66 metres. Parr Brow lies approximately 6.2 miles from Salford and is surrounded by nearby places such as Mosley Common and New Manchester. Parr Brow has a population of around 3696 people and predominantly features semi-detached housing. Parr Brow is located in the North West region of England, about 169.2 miles from London.
AdBlue drains around Parr Brow and across Greater Manchester
Over M postcodes, our vans that cover Parr Brow — a residential suburb — work the surrounding spots too, Engine Fold and New Manchester included. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting M29 8.
Your car remains put. A drive, a lay-by on the way to The Common, a side street near Common Head Farm: our technicians drain the car where it is. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Mosley Common Colliery Commemorative Wheel.
For Parr Brow drivers, the short version
First, the cap; after that, the pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it waits, anywhere across Greater Manchester.