Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Avington: Why It Happens
Keep your engine and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain plus a thorough flush, done right where your car stands in Avington, is normally what it needs when caught before your engine runs. The remainder of this page explains why it takes place and how to ensure it does not — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Many newer diesels on the roads about Avington and Clapton carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, side by side: that's the arrangement on a lot of cars. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. Much less often, the AdBlue side gets topped up — normally from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. The error lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs in Avington
It's rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the car, and running dry leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Avington Fisheries, perhaps outside the pub in the village on the way home that evening.
Unfamiliar motors are next, too. Hire cars, new motors and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
Lastly, the bottle goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as easily, and after the tip begins, no part halts it. Kintbury or the middle of Avington: it is the same few seconds either way.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Check these first, at a forecourt in Avington or a driveway out in Winding Wood. A few seconds, that's all.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones are often blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually don't.
- Plenty of motors give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of cars say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Kintbury, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — wherever you are in Berkshire — a routine to follow.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of A4.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you've located the filler and read the cap.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then look again — making sure your diesel cap remained closed throughout. After that, start the car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Skip step five entirely.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Avington?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your motor. Leave your ignition off too, since on many diesels switching it on alone starts your pump. Filling up with diesel will not thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of your tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it is the Shell or the Asda, ask the attendants to help push the car away from the pump. Your own drive around Avington is where it should stay.
Where your engine has run by now, stop somewhere safe then turn the vehicle off. Avington lies under 3 miles from the M4; there, use the next exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Winchester, under 50 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Avington.
When we arrive around Avington, what happens?
Our van reaches the car wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, near St Mark & St Luke, Avington, or by Kintbury St Mary's C.E. Primary School. Those replies determine this work and the quote, so we ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it's run. On the phone call itself, you are told our price — ahead of dispatch.
The fuel system is then purged thoroughly, once your tank is cleared. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. Once the filter has been cleaned — or replaced, if needed — fresh diesel goes in, and finally the vehicle gets tested. After that our engineers fire it up and check it runs correctly before we leave.
If your engine has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. It's worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Avington itself
Avington is a small hamlet situated on the riverside in Berkshire, with a population of around 549 residents. Avington sits at an elevation of 97 metres, surrounded by nearby places such as Kintbury, Wawcott, and Titcomb. Avington is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Avington is located approximately 25 miles from Winchester and 58 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Berkshire, Avington included
Wawcott and Titcomb are among the places around Avington, a rural hamlet, that the same vans cover, throughout RG postcodes. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting RG17 0.
The car doesn't need to move. Wherever it stands — near Parish church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Kintbury, on a lay-by heading to Beech Hanging, at home — that's where it gets cleared. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Kintbury War Memorial.
In short, for Avington motorists
Read the cap before you tip. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the car off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere across Berkshire.