Turf Hill: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. Around Turf Hill, finding it before your motor runs normally means draining and a thorough flush where it stands. Reading in advance? Then what follows explains why it happens and how to prevent it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads about Turf Hill and Lower Place carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on many vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up your diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less frequently, usually from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens in Turf Hill
Carelessness rarely causes it. Instead is three things lining up together.
On a drive off Welbeck Road before work, or in the car park at Spring Inn on the way home: that's where the hurried top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car tells you, and once it's gone, limp mode follows.
Unfamiliar motors are second, too. Rentals, new cars and company vehicles put their fillers differently, and habit goes for the cap used on the old one.
Nothing halts the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It takes a few seconds, whether out in Buersil or bang in the centre of Turf Hill.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Be it a Turf Hill forecourt or a driveway over in Pleasant View, spend a few seconds over these before anything is poured in.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Many vehicles give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Lift the flap and look for a label — many vehicles mark which belongs in which inlet just there.
- The handbook says which it lives if your filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Rochdale? Ask the person who drove it last before you set off, not once the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
For the day the warning comes on — wherever it is across Greater Manchester — a routine to follow.
- Turn off once parked — flat ground, engine stopped, and not in a rush by Turf Hill Road on the verge.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — after you have found the filler and read the cap.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave it on.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and look again — confirm your diesel cap remained shut the whole time. Only then, start the vehicle.
Find at the second or third step that the bottle went in the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Do not go on to step five.
Turf Hill: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Do not start the motor: that is how the short order of things starts. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels as soon as your ignition goes on — and so keep it off. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Texaco, Shell or any other — the staff will normally help push the vehicle away, if you ask. Your own drive around Turf Hill is the place it should stay.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. Turf Hill sits under a mile from the M62; there, take the next exit. About how far did it go? Hopping across Turf Hill is smaller a job than a trip of under 10 miles to Manchester, so say.
When our engineers arrive around Turf Hill, what occurs?
Wherever the vehicle has stopped, whether outside St Mary's Church of England Primary School, Balderstone, beside St. Mary's or on your own drive, our van travels to it. We ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has run, because those replies determine this work and our price. The quote comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
The fuel system is then flushed thoroughly, once your tank is emptied. More than with petrol, it counts here: crystals build up, some metals are attacked, and nothing washes away on its own, however long it is left. A test is at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and your filter is cleaned or changed if necessary. The motor is fired up next and checked to be sure it runs properly, all before we go.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine has not run need about half an hour once our engineers arrive. The insurer will ask for an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. It's worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Turf Hill, briefly
Turf Hill is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated near the River Irwell and close to the cities of Manchester and Salford. Turf Hill sits at an elevation of around 148 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Turf Hill is located near several other suburban areas, including Buersil, Green Gate, and Balderstone, and is around 9 miles from Manchester city centre.
AdBlue drains round Turf Hill, and Greater Manchester beyond
Turf Hill is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the places near it, Green Gate and Balderstone among them, across the OL postcode area. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting OL16 4.
Moving the car is not necessary. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Balderstone Library, a lay-by on the way to Balderstone Park, a driveway. Guessing won't help behind St Peter's, on a boundary, or anywhere hard to describe; phone and ask.
In short, for Turf Hill motorists
Before you tip, read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it stands, anywhere around Greater Manchester: switch the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.