Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Baston: Why It Occurs
Leave the engine and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. In Baston, finding it before your motor runs usually means draining and a thorough flush on the spot. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Plenty of modern diesels around Wilsthorpe, like those in Baston, carry on two liquids; your motor takes only your diesel. The exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the gas to fresh it, from its own tank.
There is a filler on each tank. Other cars keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more have the two side by side under one flap. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. It's in the gap that the error lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Baston: how it takes place
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
On a drive off Church Street before work, or in the car park at The White Horse heading home: that's where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car warns you, and once it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
Unfamiliar cars are next, as well. Rentals, new cars and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after begun, carries on. Whether it takes place in Obthorpe Lodge or the middle of Baston, it is the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Baston forecourt or a driveway out in Thurlby, spend a few seconds over these before anything goes in.
- Position can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones are often blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- On plenty of cars, the size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — many cars show what belongs in each inlet right there.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Stamford, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Lincolnshire that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Thetford Avenue.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, but it does the trick.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap, then check once more — making sure the diesel cap stayed shut the whole time. After that, start the vehicle.
Discover at the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Skip stage five entirely.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Baston?
Brief list, then. Top of that: your engine stays unstarted. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the base instead of blending — and that's where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help push your car clear of the pump if you are on a forecourt — the BP, the The Co-operative or anywhere else. Your own driveway around Baston is where it stays.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. On the Great North Road, under 15 miles from Baston, that means the next junction. Mileage matters — a short hop across Baston is a smaller job than driving under 15 miles towards Peterborough — so say roughly how far it went.
Baston: what takes place when our technicians get there
The van comes to the car anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, near St John the Baptist, or outside Baston CE Primary School. What fluid got in, the quantity, and if it ran: our technicians ask because the replies decide both work and price. On the phone call itself, you are told our price — before dispatch.
Then that tank is drained and the system purged thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. Filter cleaned or, where needed, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a check of your vehicle. Before we go, our technicians start the car and confirm that it's running properly.
If the motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Baston, briefly
Baston is a village in Lincolnshire, situated on the riverside in the East Midlands region, with an elevation of around 8 metres. Baston lies near the neighbouring settlements of Obthorpe Lodge, Langtoft, and Obthorpe, and is approximately 10.7 miles from Peterborough. Baston has a population of around 1082 people, predominantly living in detached housing. Baston is also within relatively close proximity to London, at a distance of 83.8 miles.
AdBlue drains across Lincolnshire, Baston included
Being a village, Baston has the same vans as nearby places — Langtoft, Obthorpe — right across PE postcodes and the wider area around them. Fastest of all: quote a PE6 9 postcode for the van.
Moving the vehicle is not necessary. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Crow Plantation, a side street near St Michael and All Angels Church: we drain the vehicle where it is. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Langtoft Village Sigm, ring and ask rather than assuming.
For Baston motorists, the short version
First, the cap; then, the pour. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it sits, anywhere around Lincolnshire.