Staghills: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Staghills. Here in advance? Then what follows covers why it happens and how to stop it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Diesel goes to the motor — but plenty of current diesels seen about Staghills and Cloughfold carry a second liquid as well. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to clean them, from its own tank.
Every tank has a filler of its own. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on many motors. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up constantly. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side is filled — normally from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. The mistake grows in that gap between them.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur in Staghills?
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 completely, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Newchurch Road before work, or in the car park at Boars Head on the way home.
The old car's filler is where the hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That is the second factor: an unfamiliar motor.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, once begun, keeps on. Whether it happens in Newchurch or the middle of Staghills, it is the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt around Staghills or a drive out in Higher Cloughfold. Seconds, that's all.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on many cars. Look for it.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Accrington, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
The day the light goes on, wherever around Lancashire, use this routine.
- Not in a rush on the side of Heightside Avenue, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park and switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It seems daft. It works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both sit under a flap, make sure it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Do not go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Staghills?
Don't start the engine: that is where the short order of things starts. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the car on. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it's the Texaco or the Shell, ask the staff to help roll the vehicle away from the pump. Your own driveway in Staghills is the place it should stay.
When the motor has run by now, pull over safely and switch the vehicle off. On the M66, under 5 miles from Staghills, that means the next exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Salford, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Staghills.
When our engineers get there around Staghills, what happens?
The van reaches your car anywhere it stopped — your own driveway, beside St Nicholas with St John & St Michael, or by St Peter's Roman Catholic Primary School, Newchurch. What liquid went in, the amount, and whether it ran: our technicians ask because those answers decide both work and quote. The price comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
Emptying that tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. The filter flushed or, where it must be, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a test of the car. Your engine is fired up next and checked to make sure it runs correctly, all before we leave.
Unrun vehicles usually mean a half-hour job from arrival. The equipment is fine on a live filling station, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. It's worth checking your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Staghills itself
Staghills is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Lancashire, with a mix of terraced housing and a population of around 3338 residents. Staghills sits at an elevation of 241 metres, overlooking the surrounding landscape. Staghills is located near several nearby places, including Newchurch, Hareholme, and Piercy, and is approximately 15.2 miles from the city of Salford. Staghills is also relatively distant from London, at a distance of around 175.8 miles.
AdBlue drains around Staghills, and Lancashire beyond
Hareholme and Piercy are among the places around Staghills, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, over BB postcodes. Quickest of all: give a BB4 9 postcode for our van.
Your car doesn't need to move. Wherever it sits — near Bamboo Theatre, on a lay-by heading to Edgeside Park, at home — that's where it gets cleared. Guessing doesn't help at the back of St Anne, on a border, or somewhere hard to describe; ring and ask.
The short version for Staghills people
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere across Lancashire.