Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Top of Hebers: Why It Happens
Pause here for a moment if the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Normally, when your motor hasn't turned, it's drained and fully flushed where your car is in Top of Hebers. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the page covers the reasons it occurs and the ways to prevent it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels in Higher Boarshaw, as well as Top of Hebers, run on two liquids; your motor gets just the diesel. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, and there spraying cleans the fumes.
There is a filler on every tank. Other vehicles put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others have both side by side behind one flap. Filling the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. The slip lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Top of Hebers: how it occurs
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a drive off Carrick Gardens before work, or in the car park at The White Hart heading home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car warns you, and once it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
The old car's cap is where the hand reaches — but a hire car, a new motor or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's the second factor: a new motor.
Nothing stops the tip after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Hollins or the middle of Top of Hebers: it takes the same few seconds either way.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A few seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you tip anything, on a drive in Birch or a forecourt around Top of Hebers.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- On many cars, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of cars show what belongs in which filler right there.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver knows. Check when you collect a hire car or company car — from Mills Hill's car park, perhaps — rather than once the light appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Greater Manchester that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Rosethorns Close, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park then switch off first.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. When both share a flap, make sure it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop right there. Leave out step five entirely.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Top of Hebers?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting your motor. Keep the ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself runs the fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is pulled from.
Ask the staff to help roll the car clear of the pump if you're on a forecourt — the Texaco, the BP or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive in Top of Hebers.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. On the M62, under a mile from Top of Hebers, that means the next exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Manchester, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Top of Hebers.
When we get there in Top of Hebers, what happens?
By Hollin Primary School, near Burnside Centre or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Both the work and the quote rest on three answers — which fluid, what quantity, and if it's run — so our technicians ask. You hear that price on the phone, before anyone sets off.
The fuel system is then flushed thoroughly, once the 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 here than with petrol. After the fuel filter has been flushed — or replaced, if needed — clean diesel goes in, and then the car is tested. The motor is started next and checked to make sure it runs smoothly, all before our technicians leave.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after we arrive, as long as your engine has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. It is worth checking your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Top of Hebers
Top of Hebers is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated approximately 6 miles north of Manchester city centre. Top of Hebers sits at an elevation of around 142 metres, in a region of gently sloping hills and valleys. Top of Hebers is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, with nearby neighbourhoods including Hollins, Stanycliffe, and Langley.
AdBlue drains around Top of Hebers, and Greater Manchester beyond
Over M postcodes, our teams covering Top of Hebers — a residential suburb — work the nearby locations too, Langley and Stanycliffe included. A postcode starting M24 6 gets our van to you fastest.
The car stays put. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Boarshaw Clough, a side street close to Middleton Cricket Club: we drain it where it sits. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Greater Manchester North Scouts.
Top of Hebers drivers: the short version
Tip no AdBlue till you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere in Greater Manchester, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — and so leave the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103.