How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Wesham
Pause reading for a moment when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Usually, when your motor has not turned, it's emptied and fully purged where your vehicle is in Wesham. Reading in advance? In that case the rest explains how it comes about and what to stop it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Plenty of current diesels on the roads around Wesham and Corner Row carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Its own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, where a spray treats the gas.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the arrangement on a lot of motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. Diesel gets filled at every filling station call-out, again and again. The AdBlue side is filled far less regularly, normally from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the slip lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Wesham: how it occurs
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Weeton Road before work, or in the car park at Royal Oak on the way home.
Unfamiliar cars are second, as well. Rentals, new cars and company vehicles put their fillers differently, and the hand goes for the cap 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 pour after it has started. Whether it takes place in Mowbreck or the middle of Wesham, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a drive in Dowbridge or a forecourt in Wesham.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — many vehicles mark what belongs in each inlet just there.
- Can't find it next to your diesel inlet? In that case look beneath the bonnet or inside the boot — the owner's manual says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Kirkham & Wesham? Check with whoever drove the vehicle last before leaving, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
The day the light comes on, wherever across Lancashire, use this routine.
- Turn off once parked — flat ground, motor stopped, and never rushed beside Garstang Road North on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two sit under a flap, make sure it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Finish when your tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour gently using the own spout.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Discover at the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Skip stage five altogether.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Wesham?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your motor. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the vehicle on. Diluting it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the base instead of blending — and that is where your fuel is sucked from.
At a forecourt — EG On the Move, Texaco or any other — the staff will normally help roll the car away, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive in Wesham.
When your engine has been run by now, pull over somewhere safe and switch the vehicle off. On the M55, under 3 miles from Wesham, that means the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Wesham is smaller work than a trip of under 10 miles towards Preston, and so say.
What happens when our technicians turn up in Wesham
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Medlar-with-Wesham Church of England Primary School, near War Memorial or on your own drive. Our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has run, because those replies settle the work and the price. On the call itself, you are told the quote — before anything else.
Then the tank is emptied and your system purged thoroughly. Much more than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: the crystals build up, some metals corrode, and none of that washes away on its own, however long it sits. After your filter is cleaned — or replaced, where required — fresh diesel goes in, and then the vehicle gets tested. Before we leave, our technicians start it and check that it is running correctly.
Using pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your engine hasn't run need about half an hour once our technicians arrive. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Wesham, for a moment
Wesham is a village in Lancashire, situated on the riverside at a low elevation of around 24 metres. Wesham lies near the cities of Preston and Blackpool, and is close to the nearby places of Mowbreck, Kirkham, and Ribby. Wesham has a population of approximately 4259 people, and its predominant housing stock consists of terraced properties.
Wesham and Lancashire: AdBlue drains across the area
Kirkham and Ribby are among the towns near Wesham, a village, that the same vans cover, throughout PR postcodes. Quote a postcode that starts PR4 3, and our van gets there fastest.
The car remains where it is. We drain it where it is — a side street near Christ Church, a lay-by on the way to Kirham & Wesham Cricket Ground, a driveway. Awkward to explain, like the back of Wesham Commumity Centre? Close to a county line? Checking beats guessing, so ring.
For Wesham people, the short version
Tip no AdBlue until you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave the car off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere across Lancashire.