Blunham: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then put this page aside a moment, leave your ignition and engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, carried out right where your car stands around Blunham, is normally all it needs if caught before your motor runs. The rest of this page explains why it happens and how to ensure it does not — useful if you are reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads around Blunham and Girtford carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on a lot of vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. The diesel side is topped up at the petrol pump all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, tipped by a driver who must stop and think what cap it needs. Mistakes happen in that gap between the two.
Blunham: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Haste comes from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off High Street, or heading home in the car park at The Horseshoes.
Then, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old car — because a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, once begun, keeps on. Whether it occurs in Chalton or the middle of Blunham, it's the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt around Blunham or a driveway over in Sandy. A few seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — plenty of cars mark what goes in each filler right there.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check as you collect a hire car or fleet car — at Sandy's car park, say — rather than once the warning comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
Anywhere in Bedfordshire the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Stop somewhere level, motor off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of The Hill.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, yet it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the car on.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Find at the second or third step that AdBlue went in the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Don't carry on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Blunham?
Don't start your motor: that is how the short order of things starts. Keep your ignition off too, since on many diesels it by itself runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
At a forecourt — Esso, Texaco or any other — the attendants will usually help roll your car away, when you ask. If you're on your own driveway around Blunham, leave the vehicle where it sits.
When the motor has run already, stop somewhere safe then switch the vehicle off. Leave the A1(M) — under 15 miles out of Blunham — at the next exit. About how far did it go? Crossing Blunham is less a job than a trip of under 25 miles to Cambridge, and so say.
What occurs when our engineers arrive around Blunham
Our engineers come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside John Donne Church of England Primary School, near St Edmund or St James, Blunham or on your own drive. Both the work and the quote depend on three replies — what liquid, which quantity, and if it's run — so we ask. On the call itself, you are told the price — before dispatch.
Next: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. 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 doesn't wash out on its own. The filter flushed or, if needed, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a check of your car. Before we go, our engineers start the engine and make sure that it's running correctly.
Unrun cars usually mean a half-hour visit from arrival. The kit is safe on a live filling station, and hushed enough for a driveway late at night. 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, so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Blunham, briefly
Blunham is a village in Bedfordshire, situated on the banks of the River Great Ouse at an elevation of around 26 metres. Blunham lies near the villages of Chalton, Moggerhanger, and Church End, and is within commuting distance of Cambridge, which is approximately 19 miles away. Blunham has a population of around 1391 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Blunham is also relatively close to London, being about 45 miles from the capital city.
AdBlue drains around Blunham and across Bedfordshire
Moggerhanger and Church End are among the places around Blunham, a village, that the same teams cover, over MK postcodes. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting MK44 3.
The vehicle doesn't need to move. The drain happens right there, be it a drive, a street near Providence Baptist Chapel, or a lay-by on the way to Tempsford Millennium Garden. Awkward to pin down, like the back of Blunham Old Meeting Baptist Church? By a border? Asking beats assuming, and so ring.
Blunham drivers: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Bedfordshire.