Alverton: 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 your engine and your ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Alverton. The rest of this page explains why it happens and how to make sure it does not — useful if you're reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Many modern diesels on the roads around Alverton and Normanton carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, and there a spray treats the gas.
Each tank has its own filler. Many of vehicles have a single flap for both, while some move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled on each forecourt visit, again and again. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. The mistake lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen in Alverton?
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
On a driveway off Longhedge Lane before work, or in the car park outside the pub in the village on the way home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car warns you, and if it is gone, limp mode kicks in.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part halts the pour once 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 seconds, be it out in Kilvington or bang in the centre of Alverton.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Whether a Alverton forecourt or a drive over in Orston, take a few seconds on these before any is poured in.
- Read the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue caps are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally aren't.
- Many motors fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many cars have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it is if the filler is not next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver knows. Ask as you pick up a hire car or company car — at Elton & Orston's car park, perhaps — not when the light appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
Wherever around Nottinghamshire the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Main Street, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, but it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the vehicle on.
- Stop when that tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour slowly using the own spout.
- Before you start your car, close the cap and check again that the diesel cap was never came off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Don't go on to stage five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Alverton?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting the motor. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch it on. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — JET, another forecourt nearby or any other — the attendants will normally help push the vehicle clear, when you ask. At home around Alverton? So the car remains put.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. Leave the M1 — under 25 miles out of Alverton — at the first junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Nottingham, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Alverton.
Alverton: what takes place when our engineers arrive
Anywhere your car has stopped, be it outside Orston Primary School, near Art in a Box or at home, the van comes to it. Which liquid was put in, the quantity, and whether it ran: we ask since the answers decide the work and quote. On the phone call itself, you are told the price — ahead of dispatch.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. More than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: the crystals build up, certain metals are attacked, and none of it clears away on its own, no matter how long it sits. Once the fuel filter is cleaned — or replaced, if required — fresh diesel goes in, and finally your car is tested. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
If the engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. The insurer will ask for an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Alverton, for a moment
Alverton is a small hamlet situated on the riverside in Nottinghamshire, with a low elevation of 31 metres. Alverton lies near several other rural settlements, including Kilvington, Flawborough, and Staunton in the Vale, and is approximately 13.9 miles from Nottingham. Alverton has a population of around 515 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Alverton is also relatively distant from London, at around 105.4 miles away.
AdBlue drains in Alverton and across Nottinghamshire
Over NG postcodes, our teams that cover Alverton — a rural hamlet — work the surrounding places too, Staunton in the Vale and Flawborough among them. Give a postcode that starts NG13 9, and our van arrives quickest.
The vehicle stays put. Wherever it sits — near St Mary, on a layby heading to Orston Recreation Ground, on a drive — that's where it is emptied. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Orston Village Hall.
Alverton people: the short version
Tip no AdBlue until you have read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it is, wherever around Nottinghamshire: switch the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.