How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Baydon
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then put this page down a moment, leave your ignition and engine off, then phone 0333 366 0103. Usually, when your motor has not turned, it's drained and fully rinsed where your vehicle is around Baydon. Reading before the event? In that case what follows explains how it happens and how to prevent it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Diesel goes to the motor — but many current diesels seen round Baydon and Preston carry another liquid too. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas and cleans it.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. Other motors put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty more have both together under one flap. Topping up your diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. Seldom topped up, AdBlue normally goes in out of a bottle, poured by a driver who has to stop and think which cap it needs. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place around Baydon
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the car, and letting it run out leads to limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Finches Lane, perhaps at the pub in the village on the way home after work.
Then your car is strange. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, after started, carries on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Baydon or out in Aldbourne.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt around Baydon or a drive out in Upper Lambourn. Seconds, no more.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- Cannot see it next to your diesel filler? Then look beneath the bonnet or inside the boot — the owner's manual says where.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask as you pick up a hire car or fleet car — at Hungerford's car park, perhaps — not when the warning appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Wiltshire that is.
- Switch off once parked — flat ground, engine off, and not rushed beside Ermin Street at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Leave out step five entirely.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Baydon?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting your engine. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Shell, another forecourt nearby or any other — the staff will normally help roll the vehicle away, when you ask. Your own driveway in Baydon is where it stays.
Already started? Pull over once it is sensible, then turn off. The next exit is the place to leave when you're on the M4, under a mile from Baydon. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Baydon is smaller work than a trip of under 25 miles to Oxford, so tell us.
What takes place when our technicians get there around Baydon
Our van comes to the vehicle wherever it stopped — your own driveway, beside St Nicholas, or by Baydon St Nicholas Church of England Primary School. Both the work and our quote rest on three replies — what fluid, which amount, and whether it has run — so our technicians ask. On the call itself, you are told the price — ahead of dispatch.
Draining your tank comes next, then a full flush of the system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. Testing is last: before that, fresh diesel is added, and the fuel filter is cleaned or replaced as needed. Then we fire it up and check it runs smoothly before we go.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor has not run take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. The insurer will ask for an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Baydon
Baydon is a rural village in north Wiltshire, situated at an elevation of around 230 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type. Baydon lies near the villages of Aldbourne and Lambourn Woodlands, and is surrounded by scenic countryside. Baydon is located approximately 22 miles from Oxford and 63 miles from London, making it a relatively remote but accessible community. Baydon remains a small, quiet village with a population of around 656 residents.
AdBlue drains across Wiltshire, Baydon included
Marridge Hill and Lambourn Woodlands are among the towns near Baydon, a rural village, that the same vans cover, throughout SN postcodes. Give a postcode that starts SN8 2, and the van gets there quickest.
Moving the car is not needed. We drain it where it is — a side street near BYPA, a lay-by on the way to St Nicholas School Playing Fields, a drive. Guessing won't help at the back of Methodist Church, on a border, or anywhere hard to pin down; phone and check.
The short version for Baydon people
Pour nothing till you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere across Wiltshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — so leave the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103.