Brinklow: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then set this page down a moment, keep your ignition and engine off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Brinklow. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the page explains the why it happens and the ways to avoid it altogether.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Plenty of newer diesels in Stretton under Fosse, like those in Brinklow, carry on two liquids; the engine gets just the diesel. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
Different tanks, different fillers. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled on every filling station visit, week in, week out. Much less often, the AdBlue side is topped up — normally from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. Mistakes happen in that gap between the two.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place around Brinklow?
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things lining up together.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the car, and running out means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Broad Street, perhaps outside White Lion on the way home that evening.
The old car's filler is where your hand reaches — but a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is a second thing: a strange vehicle.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip after it has started. It takes a few seconds, be it in Hungerfield or right in the heart of Brinklow.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Easenhall or a forecourt in Brinklow, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually do not.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on many motors. Check for it.
- Cannot see it beside the diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or in the boot — the owner's manual will say where.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Rugby? Ask the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, not once the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
On the day the warning appears — anywhere you are across Warwickshire — a routine to use.
- Switch off once parked — flat ground, engine off, and never in a rush beside Rugby Road at the roadside.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud while unscrewing it. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- Both under a single flap? Then confirm the cap on the diesel filler stays shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Leave out step five altogether.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Brinklow already?
Do not start your motor: that's where the short order of things begins. The fuel pump runs on many diesels as soon as the ignition goes on — and so leave it off. Thinning it with more diesel won't work, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom rather than blending — and that is where the fuel is pulled from.
Ask the attendants to help push your car away from the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Morrisons, the Tesco or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive around Brinklow.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. Brinklow sits under 3 miles from the M6; on it, take the next junction. A short hop across Brinklow is a smaller job than a run towards Coventry, under 10 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
What occurs when our engineers turn up around Brinklow
Anywhere the car came to rest, be it by Binley Woods Primary School, beside Brinklow URC or at home, the van travels to it. Which liquid got in, the amount, and whether it ran: we ask because the answers decide both work and quote. No one heads out before you've heard the price over the phone.
Then the tank is drained and your system cleaned thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes out by itself. Hence it matters more. A test is at the end: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and your filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. Before leaving, we start the engine and check that it is running properly.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once we get there, as long as the motor has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Brinklow, briefly
Brinklow is a small village in Warwickshire, situated approximately 6 miles east of Coventry and 81 miles northwest of London. Brinklow sits at an elevation of around 93 metres, surrounded by rolling countryside and nearby villages such as Hungerfield and Bretford. Brinklow has a population of around 803 people, predominantly living in terraced housing. Brinklow remains a quiet, rural community with a strong sense of local identity.
AdBlue drains across Warwickshire, Brinklow included
Bretford and Kings Newnham are among the towns near Brinklow, a rural village, that the same vans cover, throughout CV postcodes. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting CV23 0.
No need to shift the vehicle. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Brinklow Playing Field, a side street near Brinklow Village Sign: our technicians drain the car where it sits. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of 200 Years of Rugby, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Brinklow motorists: the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it is, anywhere around Warwickshire: switch the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103.