Sale: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? In that case put this page aside for now, keep the ignition and engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Sale. The rest of this page covers why it occurs and how to make sure it does not — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
No single fluid but two: that's what many modern diesels near Sale and Northern Moor carry, with diesel for the motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
There's a filler on every tank. Plenty of cars share a single flap for the two, whereas some move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is fuelled at the petrol pump all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens around Sale
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off School Road before work, or in the car park at The Bank on the way home.
Unfamiliar cars are next, as well. Rentals, new motors and company motors place their fillers differently, and habit goes for the cap it 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 once it has started. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Sale or out in Ashton upon Mersey.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Look at these first, at a forecourt in Sale or a driveway over in Timperley. Seconds, no more.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally isn't. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- The size. On plenty of motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Ask 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 outside Humphrey Park.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
The day the light goes on, anywhere in Greater Manchester, follow this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Curzon Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- The two under one flap? Then confirm the lid on your diesel side stays shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- 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.
Discover during the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Step five stays out.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Sale already?
Don't start the motor: that's where the short order of things starts. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is pulled from.
Ask the attendants to help push the vehicle away from the pump if you are at a forecourt — the Asda, the Shell or somewhere else. If you are on your own driveway around Sale, leave the vehicle where it is.
When your motor has run already, pull over safely and turn the vehicle off. Sale lies under a mile from the M60; there, use the first junction. Mileage matters — a short hop across Sale is a smaller job than heading under 5 miles to Salford — so say roughly how far it went.
Sale: what happens when our technicians get there
Our van reaches the car anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside Little Orange, or by Springfield Primary School. Both the work and the quote rest on three replies — which liquid, what quantity, and if it has run — so we ask. Nobody sets off until you've had the quote by phone.
Your system is then purged thoroughly, after that tank is emptied. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and none of it clears away by itself. That is why it matters more. After the fuel filter is flushed — or replaced, where needed — fresh diesel is added, and finally your vehicle gets tested. Then our engineers fire it up and make sure it runs correctly before we go.
Unrun cars mostly need a half-hour job after the moment we arrive. The equipment is fine on a busy filling station, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. Your insurer will ask for the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours once this job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. It's worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Sale and where it is
Sale is a town in Greater Manchester, situated on the banks of the River Mersey, with Ashton upon Mersey and Brooklands to the east and Stretford to the west. Sale sits at an elevation of around 30 metres, approximately 4 miles southwest of Salford and 161 miles northwest of London. Sale has a population of around 29,226 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Sale remains a residential town with a strong sense of community.
AdBlue drains across Greater Manchester, Sale included
Brooklands and Stretford are among the places around Sale, a riverside town, that the same vans cover, throughout M postcodes. Quote a postcode that starts M33 7, and our van gets there fastest.
Your car does not need to move. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street close to The Square Shopping Centre, a lay-by on the way to Kelsall Street Park, a driveway. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Sale Library.
Sale motorists: the short version
Pour nothing till you have read the cap. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it stands, anywhere around Greater Manchester: switch it off then phone 0333 366 0103.