AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Benson: How It Occurs and How to Stop It
Pause reading for a moment if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, done just where your car stands around Benson, is usually what it needs if caught before the motor runs. Here in advance? In that case what follows covers why it happens and what to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
No single liquid but two: that's how many newer diesels near Benson and Crowmarsh Gifford carry, with diesel for the motor. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the gas to fresh it, from a separate tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Other cars put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place the two side by side under one flap. At the petrol pump, the diesel side gets filled all the time. The AdBlue side is filled far less regularly, normally from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. The error lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs around Benson
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things coming up together.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the car, and letting it run dry means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off High Street, or outside The Crown on the way home after work.
The old car's filler is where the hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new motor or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's the second factor: a new car.
Nothing stops the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Benson or out in Preston Crowmarsh.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Ewelme or a forecourt around Benson, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Read the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- The size. On plenty of motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many vehicles have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says which it lives if the filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park at Cholsey? Check with whoever drove the car last before you set off, rather than once the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
When the light comes on, anywhere around Oxfordshire, use this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Mill Stream.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud while unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two share a flap, make sure it's shut before the bottle comes up.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Find at the second or third step that the bottle went into the diesel tank? That's where you stop. Do not go on to step five.
Benson: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The short order of things, beginning with not starting the engine. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch it on. Diluting it with more diesel fails, because AdBlue settles to the bottom instead of blending — and that is where the fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — BP, Esso or any other — the attendants will normally help roll your car away, when you ask. Your own drive in Benson is the place it should stay.
Where your motor has been run by now, pull over safely and switch the car off. On the M40, under 10 miles from Benson, that means the next junction. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Oxford, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Benson.
When our technicians arrive in Benson, what occurs?
Anywhere your car has stopped, whether outside Benson Church of England Primary School, beside Benson Library or on your own drive, our van comes to it. We ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run, since the replies decide the work and the price. You get that quote on the phone, before anyone sets off.
Your system is then purged thoroughly, once that tank is cleared. Much more than with petrol, it counts here: crystals build up, some metals are attacked, and none of that clears out unaided, however long it sits. The filter flushed or, if it must be, swapped; fresh diesel in; then a test of the car. Next we fire it up and check it runs smoothly before leaving.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour after our engineers arrive, as long as your engine has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. No money upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. It is worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Benson itself
Benson is a village in Oxfordshire, situated on the banks of the River Thames at an elevation of 54 metres. Benson sits in a rural area, with nearby villages including Preston Crowmarsh, Rokemarsh, and Roke, and is located approximately 11 miles from Oxford. Benson has a population of around 1818 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Benson is also within commuting distance of London, being around 42 miles from the city centre.
AdBlue drains across Oxfordshire, Benson included
Rokemarsh and Roke are among the places around Benson, a village, that the same vans cover, over OX postcodes. Quote a postcode beginning OX10 6, and our van arrives fastest.
There's no need to move the car. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Wallingford Castle Meadows, a side street near Benson War Memorial: our engineers drain the vehicle where it sits. Guessing won't help at the back of Saint Helen, close to a boundary, or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and ask.
For Benson people, the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it is, wherever in Oxfordshire: keep it off then call 0333 366 0103.