Rising Bridge: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then put this page aside for now, leave your ignition and motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Usually, if the motor hasn't run, it is drained and thoroughly purged where your car sits in Rising Bridge. The rest of this page explains why it happens and how to make sure it does not — handy if you are reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Diesel goes to your motor — but plenty of current diesels seen about Rising Bridge and Hud Hey carry another fluid as well. Its own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, where a spray treats the fumes.
Each tank has its own filler. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place both together behind one flap. At the petrol pump, the diesel side is topped up constantly. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. The error lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Rising Bridge
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Rising Bridge Road before work, or in the car park outside the pub in the village on the way home.
Then the car is strange. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part stops the tip once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Rising Bridge or out in Sherfin.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
A few seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Baxenden or a forecourt in Rising Bridge.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- Can't find it next to the diesel inlet? In that case look beneath the bonnet or in your boot — the owner's manual says 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 Accrington.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
On the day the light comes on — wherever it is in Lancashire — a routine to use.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Underbank Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, but it works.
- Both under a single flap? Then make sure the lid on the diesel side is still shut before raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then look once more — confirm your diesel cap remained closed throughout. Only then, start the car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Skip step five entirely.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Rising Bridge already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the vehicle on. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is sucked from.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it's the Shell or the Texaco, ask the attendants to help roll the car clear of the petrol pump. On your own drive in Rising Bridge? Then your car remains where it is.
When the engine has run already, pull over safely then switch the vehicle off. Rising Bridge sits under 5 miles from the M65; there, use the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Rising Bridge is less a job than a run of under 25 miles towards Preston, and so tell us.
Our arrival around Rising Bridge, and what happens next
Our van reaches the car anywhere it stopped — your own drive, near Baxenden Cricket Club, or outside St John's Stonefold CofE Primary School. Our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run, since those replies settle this work and the quote. No one sets off until you have had our price by phone.
The fuel system is then rinsed thoroughly, once that tank is drained. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Next our technicians fire it up and confirm it runs smoothly before we leave.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour once our technicians arrive, as long as your engine hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a live forecourt and quiet at night beside a house. No money in advance; you settle up on the day. At the end, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Rising Bridge itself
Rising Bridge is a village in Lancashire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 239 metres. Rising Bridge has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly characterised by terraced homes. Rising Bridge is located near several other small communities, including Sherfin, Lower Baxenden, and Acre, and is around 15 miles from the city of Preston. Rising Bridge is a relatively small village, with a population of approximately 701 people.
AdBlue drains across Lancashire, Rising Bridge included
As a village, Rising Bridge shares its vans surrounding areas — Lower Baxenden, Acre — all the way through BB postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Quote a postcode that starts BB5 2, and the van gets there quickest.
Your car stays put. Draining takes place on the spot, be it a driveway, a street near Church of St John the Baptist, or a lay-by on the way to Worsley Park. Guessing won't help at the back of St James, close to a border, or anywhere awkward to describe; phone and ask.
For Rising Bridge people, the short version
Read the cap before you tip. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it is, anywhere in Lancashire: keep the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.