Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Woolroad: Why It Occurs
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and your ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. Normally, if the engine hasn't run, it's emptied and fully rinsed where your vehicle is in Woolroad. Not happened yet? Further down, the page explains the reasons it happens and the how to avoid it altogether.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Not one fluid but two: that is how plenty of newer diesels near Woolroad and Braeside run, with diesel for the motor. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on a lot of cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. The mistake grows in that gap between them.
Woolroad: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things lining up together.
Haste comes from the warning. The vehicle tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off Ridings Court, or on the way home in the car park at The Swan.
Next, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — because a rental car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
Nothing stops the tip once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Dobcross or the heart of Woolroad: it is the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Be it a Woolroad forecourt or a driveway over in Weakey, take a couple of seconds on 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 where it sits.
- On plenty of cars, the size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of vehicles have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows which it lives if the filler is not next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Greenfield? Check with whoever drove the vehicle last before you set off, not once the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Greater Manchester that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Sandy Lane.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Before you start your car, close the cap and check a second time that your diesel cap never came off.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Woolroad?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with not starting the motor. Don't switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
On a forecourt — Gulf, Shell or another — the attendants will usually help push the car clear, if you ask. Your own driveway around Woolroad is where it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. Woolroad sits under 5 miles from the M62; there, use the first junction. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Woolroad is a smaller job than driving under 15 miles to Manchester — so tell us roughly how far it went.
Woolroad: what happens when our engineers arrive
We come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Holy Trinity CofE Dobcross Primary School, close to Holy Trinity or on your own driveway. Those answers determine this work and our quote, and so our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run. The quote comes on the call, before any van leaves.
Next: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither washes out by itself. Hence it matters more. After the fuel filter has been flushed — or renewed, where required — clean diesel goes in, and then the vehicle gets tested. The engine is started next and tested to make sure it runs smoothly, all before we go.
If your engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once this job is done. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Woolroad, for a moment
Woolroad is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated on the riverside with nearby Dobcross and overlooking Tame Water. Woolroad has a mix of housing types, but predominantly features terraced homes, and is located approximately 11 miles from Manchester. Woolroad sits at an elevation of 232 metres, giving it a distinctive setting within the local landscape. Woolroad is part of the larger North West region, about 162 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Greater Manchester, Woolroad included
Woolroad is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Tame Water and Marslands among them, across the OL postcode area. Fastest of all: quote a OL3 5 postcode to our van.
There's no need to move the car. The drain happens right there, whether a driveway, a street by Uppermill Methodist Church, or a lay-by towards Brownhill Nature Garden. Assuming won't help behind Uppermill Library, close to a border, or somewhere hard to pin down; ring and check.
The short version for Woolroad people
Before you pour, read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep it switched off and phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, across Greater Manchester.