Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Rawtenstall: Why It Occurs
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and the ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, carried out just where the car stands around Rawtenstall, is normally what it needs when found before your motor runs. The rest of this page explains why it takes place and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you're reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads around Rawtenstall and Spring Side carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
Every tank has one filler of its own. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. The AdBlue side is filled far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in the gap that the slip happens.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Rawtenstall: how it takes place
It's hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a driveway off Saint Mary's Way before work, or in the car park at The Queens Arms heading home: that is where the hurried top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle warns you, and once it's gone, limp mode follows.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the 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, and so nothing stops the pour once it has started. Longholme or the heart of Rawtenstall: it is the same few seconds either way.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Constable Lee or a forecourt in Rawtenstall, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Read the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue ones are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually are not.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- Open the flap and check for a label — many motors mark which belongs in which filler just there.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Accrington? Ask the person who drove the car last before you set off, not once the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
The day the light goes on, wherever in Lancashire, use this routine.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Bacup Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It seems 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.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting your car, close the cap and check a second time that the diesel cap was never came off.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? So stop just there. Skip step five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Rawtenstall?
Brief order, then. Top of that: your engine stays unstarted. Do not switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel will not weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — Shell, Tesco or another — the attendants will normally help roll your car away, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around Rawtenstall.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your motor has already run. The next exit is where to leave when you are on the M66, under 3 miles from Rawtenstall. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Salford, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Rawtenstall.
What occurs when we turn up in Rawtenstall
Our engineers come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside St Mary's CofE Primary School Rawtenstall, close to St Mary or on your own driveway. Which fluid got in, the quantity, and if it ran: our technicians ask since the replies decide the work and quote. Nobody heads out until you have had our quote over the phone.
Draining the tank comes next, then a full flush of the fuel system. Much more than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: crystals build up, certain metals corrode, and nothing washes away on its own, however long it sits. The filter cleaned or, if it must be, swapped; fresh diesel in; then a test of your car. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the engine hasn't run take roughly half an hour once our technicians are there. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, take a look at your policy; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Rawtenstall and where it is
Rawtenstall is a town in Lancashire, situated on the riverside in the North West of England, with a population of around 11223 people. Rawtenstall sits at an elevation of 170 metres, surrounded by nearby places such as Longholme, Hall Carr, and New Hall Hey. Rawtenstall is characterized by its predominantly terraced housing stock, reflecting its historical development as a residential town. Rawtenstall is located approximately 15 miles from Salford and 176 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Lancashire, Rawtenstall included
Over BB postcodes, the teams that cover Rawtenstall — a riverside town — work the surrounding locations too, New Hall Hey and Hall Carr among them. Quote a postcode that starts BB4 7, and our van arrives fastest.
The vehicle stays where it is. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Rawtenstall Library, a lay-by on the way to Fall barn park, a driveway. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Longholme Methodist, ring and ask rather than assuming.
For Rawtenstall drivers, the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it stands, anywhere in Lancashire: keep it off then phone 0333 366 0103.