How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Broughton
Leave your engine and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before the motor runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Broughton. Here before the event? In that case what follows explains how it happens and how to stop it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Many newer diesels on the roads around Broughton and Pytchley carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to fresh them, from its own tank.
Every tank comes with a filler of its own. Many of cars have a single flap for the two, whereas others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled on every filling station visit, week in, week out. Much less commonly, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
Broughton: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the vehicle, and letting it run out means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off High Street, perhaps at The Red Lion on the way home after work.
New-to-you motors come second, as well. Rentals, new vehicles and company vehicles place their fillers in new places, and the hand reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in just as readily, and once the tip starts, nothing stops it. Little Cransley or the heart of Broughton: it takes the same few seconds either way.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Be it a Broughton forecourt or a driveway over in Loddington, take a couple of seconds over these before anything goes in.
- Check the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally are not.
- On many vehicles, size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Look for it.
- Can't see it beside the diesel filler? In that case check below the bonnet or in the boot — the handbook will say where.
- The previous driver knows. Check when you pick up a hire car or company car — from Kettering's car park, perhaps — not once the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
For the day the warning comes on — anywhere it is in Northamptonshire — a simple routine to follow.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Wellingborough Road.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you've found your filler and read the cap.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two sit under a flap, make sure it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the vehicle, shut the cap and look again that the diesel cap was never came off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Skip stage five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Broughton?
Short list, then. Top of that: the motor remains off. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch it on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the attendants to help roll the car away from the pump if you are on a forecourt — the BP, the Shell or somewhere else. On your own drive around Broughton? Then the vehicle remains put.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. On the M1, under 15 miles from Broughton, that means the next junction. About how far did it go? Crossing Broughton is less work than a trip of under 25 miles towards Milton Keynes, and so say.
What takes place when our technicians turn up in Broughton
Wherever your car came to rest, be it outside Broughton Primary School, near St Andrew or on your own drive, our van travels to it. We ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, because those replies decide the work and the price. The quote comes over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
The fuel system is then cleaned thoroughly, after that tank is cleared. 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. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine has not run take about half an hour after we are there. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Broughton, briefly
Broughton is a village in Northamptonshire, situated in the East Midlands region of England, with an elevation of around 119 metres above sea level. Broughton lies approximately 65 miles northwest of London and is close to the larger town of Milton Keynes, which is about 23 miles away. Broughton is surrounded by other small villages, including Little Cransley and Great Cransley, and has a population of around 1257 people, mostly living in semi-detached houses.
Broughton and Northamptonshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Great Cransley and Mawsley Village are among the places around Broughton, a rural village, that the same vans cover, over NN postcodes. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting NN14 1.
Shifting the car isn't necessary. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Churchill Spinney, a side street close to Broughton Baptist Chapel: we drain the car where it is. Assuming won't help behind Broughton Village Hall, on a boundary, or somewhere hard to pin down; ring and check.
For Broughton drivers, the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere across Northamptonshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — so leave the car off and call 0333 366 0103.