Bladon: 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 motor and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Bladon. The remainder of this page explains why it happens and how to ensure it does not — useful if you're reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Diesel feeds your engine — yet plenty of newer diesels seen round Bladon and Hensington hold another liquid as well. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the gas to fresh them, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that's the layout on many motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the petrol pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place around Bladon
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Hurry comes from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off The Green, or heading home in the car park at The White House.
The old car's filler is where your hand goes — yet a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That is the second factor: an unfamiliar car.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the pour once it has started. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Bladon or out in Campsfield.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Whether a Bladon forecourt or a driveway out in Begbroke, take a few seconds on these before any goes in.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally do not.
- On many cars, size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Hanborough.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Anywhere in Oxfordshire the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Pull in somewhere level, engine off, with time to spare — never rushing on the side of Church Mews.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Finish once your tank fills or the bottle is empty; until then, tip slowly through its built-in spout.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Stage five is off limits.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Bladon?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting the motor. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the car on. Filling up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — Gulf, Shell or any other — the attendants will usually help push your car clear, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive around Bladon.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. On the M40, under 10 miles from Bladon, that means the next junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Oxford, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Bladon.
Our arrival around Bladon, and what happens next
The van comes to the vehicle anywhere it stopped — your own drive, near St Martin's Church, or by Bladon Church of England Primary School. The replies settle this work and our price, and so we ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has run. During the phone call itself, you hear the quote — ahead of anything else.
Emptying your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the fuel system. Much more than with petrol, it matters here: crystals build up, some metals are attacked, and nothing clears away on its own, however long it sits. Filter cleaned or, if needed, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a check of the car. The motor is started next and tested to make sure it runs properly, all before our engineers leave.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once our technicians get there, as long as the motor hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It's worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Bladon
Bladon is a small village in Oxfordshire, situated on the banks of the River Evenlode at an elevation of 77 metres. Bladon lies close to the historic town of Woodstock and the famous Blenheim Palace, and is within easy reach of Oxford, which is 6.7 miles away. Bladon has a mix of housing types, but terraced houses are predominant in the village. Bladon is also near to other small settlements, including Campsfield and East End.
Bladon and Oxfordshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout OX postcodes, the teams that cover Bladon — a village — work the nearby locations too, East End and Woodstock included. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting OX20 1.
Shifting your car isn't necessary. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Bladon Green, a side street near Winston Churchill: our engineers drain the car where it stands. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Bladon Camp, ring and ask rather than guessing.
For Bladon drivers, the short version
Tip no AdBlue till you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around Oxfordshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — so leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103.