Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Spring Bank: Why It Occurs
Keep the engine and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Usually, if the engine hasn't turned, it's emptied and thoroughly flushed where your car is around Spring Bank. Reading in advance? Then what follows explains how it comes about and how to prevent it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Plenty of current diesels on the roads around Spring Bank and Laithwaite carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Plenty of motors have a single flap for both, while others move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at each forecourt call-out, again and again. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. The mistake grows in that gap between the two.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens in Spring Bank
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
Haste follows from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a driveway off Larch Avenue, or on the way home in the car park outside Hare & Hounds.
Unfamiliar vehicles are next, too. Rentals, new cars and company vehicles place their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
Third, the bottle fits: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in as easily, and after the pour starts, nothing stops it. It's seconds, be it in Pemberton or bang in the centre of Spring Bank.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Be it a Spring Bank forecourt or a driveway over in Newtown, take a few seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- Position can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually don't.
- Plenty of motors give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of vehicles. Check for it.
- Cannot see it beside your diesel inlet? In that case look beneath the bonnet or in the boot — the owner's manual will say which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask as you collect a rental or company car — at Pemberton's car park, perhaps — rather than when the warning appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
When the light goes on, anywhere around Greater Manchester, use this routine.
- Switch off once parked — flat ground, motor stopped, and never rushed by The Crescent on the verge.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — once you've located the filler and read it.
- The diesel cap remains on. When the two sit under a flap, make sure it's closed before the bottle comes up.
- Stop when your tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; until then, pour gently using its own spout.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Leave out step five altogether.
Spring Bank: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Short list, then. Top of it: the motor stays unstarted. Keep the ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel will not weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the bottom of that tank, just where fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — Esso, Asda or any other — the attendants will usually help push the vehicle clear, when you ask. On your own drive in Spring Bank? Then your car stays put.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. On the Orrell Interchange, under 3 miles from Spring Bank, that means the next exit. Mileage counts — a short hop across Spring Bank is a smaller job than heading under 25 miles to Preston — so say roughly how far it went.
Our arrival around Spring Bank, and what happens next
The van reaches the vehicle wherever it has come to rest — your own drive, beside St Cuthbert's Catholic Church, or outside St Cuthbert's Catholic Primary School Wigan. What fluid got in, the amount, and whether it ran: our technicians ask because those answers decide both work and price. During the call itself, you are told the price — ahead of dispatch.
After that: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of that washes away by itself. That is why it counts more. After the fuel filter has been cleaned — or replaced, if needed — fresh diesel goes in, and then your vehicle gets tested. Before leaving, we fire it up and confirm that it's running smoothly.
If your motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Your insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. It is worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Spring Bank, briefly
Spring Bank is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated inland at an elevation of 56 metres. Spring Bank lies approximately 15.5 miles from Preston and is near other local places such as Pemberton and Worsley Hall. Spring Bank has a population of around 8539 people and is characterised by predominantly semi-detached housing.
Spring Bank and Greater Manchester: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout WN postcodes, the teams covering Spring Bank — a residential suburb — work the surrounding places too, Norley and Worsley Hall among them. Quote a postcode beginning WN5 9, and our van gets there quickest.
No need to shift your car. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near Mount Zion Independant Methodist Church, a lay-by on the way to Highfield Park, a drive. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Bramble House, ring and ask instead of guessing.
For Spring Bank motorists, the short version
Tip nothing until you've read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it stands, anywhere across Greater Manchester: keep it off then call 0333 366 0103.