Alexandra Park: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Stop here for a moment when the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Alexandra Park. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Not one fluid but two: that is what many newer diesels near Alexandra Park and Sherwood Rise carry, with diesel for your motor. Its own tank holds it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, and there spraying cleans the fumes.
Each tank has a filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on a lot of cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. Much less commonly, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. That gap is where the slip lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place around Alexandra Park
Carelessness rarely causes it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the car, and running out means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off The Crescent, or outside The Duke of Cambridge on the way home that evening.
Then the vehicle is new. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, after begun, carries on. Whether it occurs in Mapperley Park or the middle of Alexandra Park, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A few seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Carrington or a forecourt in Alexandra Park.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- On many cars, the size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- Cannot find it next to the diesel filler? Then look below the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook will say where.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Nottingham? Check with whoever drove it last before leaving, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
On the day the light comes on — anywhere you are around Nottinghamshire — a routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of Denmark Grove, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park then switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Never go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Alexandra Park?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your engine. Keep your ignition off too, since on many diesels it alone starts the pump. Thinning it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of mixing — and that is where your fuel is sucked from.
The attendants at Valero, Shell or any forecourt will usually help pushing the vehicle clear when asked. If you are on your own driveway in Alexandra Park, leave it where it stands.
When your motor has run already, stop safely and turn the car off. On the M1, under 5 miles from Alexandra Park, that means the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Alexandra Park is smaller a job than a trip of under 3 miles towards Nottingham, and so say.
What occurs when we arrive in Alexandra Park
By St Augustine's Catholic Primary and Nursery School, A Voluntary Academy, near Sycamore Community Centre or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, we come to it. Both the work and our price depend on three replies — what liquid, which quantity, and whether it's run — so we ask. You hear that price on the phone, before anyone heads out.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Your engine is started next and checked to make 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 the motor hasn't run take roughly half an hour after our technicians arrive. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. It is worth looking at your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Alexandra Park itself
Alexandra Park is a suburban area located near the city of Nottingham in the East Midlands region of England. Alexandra Park sits at an elevation of 103 metres, approximately 1.2 miles from Nottingham city centre, and is surrounded by other residential areas such as Mapperley Park and Mapperley. Alexandra Park is predominantly composed of flat-type housing, accommodating a population of around 6167 residents. Alexandra Park is also situated near St Anns, another nearby suburban area.
AdBlue drains across Nottinghamshire, Alexandra Park included
As a residential suburb, Alexandra Park shares its vans surrounding areas — Mapperley, St Anns — all the way across NG postcodes and the wider area around them. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting NG3 4.
Your car stays put. Anywhere it stands — beside Brendon Lawrence Sports Hall, in a layby en route to Ecoworks, at home — that's where it gets drained. Awkward to explain, like the back of Afro-Carribean Community Centre? By a county line? Asking beats assuming, and so phone.
For Alexandra Park motorists, the short version
Tip no AdBlue until you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it stands, anywhere across Nottinghamshire.