AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Cawston: Why It Happens and How to Prevent It
Leave your engine and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. In Cawston, finding it before your motor runs usually leaves draining and a thorough flush on the spot. Here in advance? Then what follows covers how it happens and what to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
No single liquid but two: that is what many modern diesels around Cawston and Thurlaston carry, with diesel feeding the motor. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to fresh it, from a separate tank.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on many cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Diesel goes in on each filling station visit, again and again. Rarely topped up, AdBlue usually goes in from a bottle, tipped by a driver who must stop and think which cap to use. That gap is where the slip lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen in Cawston?
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
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 happens quickly, before work on a driveway off Coventry Road, or on the way home in the car park at The Black Horse.
New-to-you motors come next, too. Rentals, new vehicles and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and habit goes for the cap it used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it occurs in Lime Tree Village or the middle of Cawston, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Be it a Cawston forecourt or a drive out in Overslade, spend a few seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally are not.
- On plenty of motors, size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Rugby? Check with the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, rather than once the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Warwickshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Elborow Way, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off properly.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, yes, yet it does the trick.
- The two under a single flap? Then make sure the lid on the diesel filler is still shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Finish when that tank fills or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip slowly using its built-in spout.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at the second or third step that AdBlue went in the diesel filler? That is where you stop. Don't go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Cawston already?
The short order of things, starting with not starting your motor. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition goes on — and so leave it off. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
Ask the attendants to help push the vehicle clear of the petrol pump if you're on a forecourt — the BP, the Sainsburys or somewhere else. On your own drive around Cawston? So the car remains put.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. Come off the M45 — under 3 miles out of Cawston — at the next exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Coventry, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Cawston.
When our engineers turn up in Cawston, what occurs?
The van comes to the car wherever it stopped — your own drive, near Cawston Community Hall, or by Cawston Grange Primary School. Those answers settle this work and our price, so our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and if it has run. Nobody heads out until you have had the price over the phone.
Then your tank is cleared and the fuel system purged thoroughly. 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 does not wash out on its own. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. We do not go until it has been started and is running smoothly.
If the engine has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Cawston
Cawston is a village in Warwickshire, situated approximately 9 miles east of Coventry and 77 miles northwest of London. Cawston sits in a rural area at an elevation of around 115 metres, with nearby settlements including Lime Tree Village, Bilton, and Lawford Heath. Cawston has a population of around 3364 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
Cawston and Warwickshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Bilton and Lawford Heath are among the towns around Cawston, a rural village, that the same teams cover, over CV postcodes. Fastest of all: quote a CV22 7 postcode for our van.
No need to shift the vehicle. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near Sacred Heart, a lay-by on the way to Fenley Field, a driveway. Tricky to explain, like the back of Old Laurentians RFC? By a border? Checking beats assuming, and so ring.
For Cawston drivers, the short version
First, the cap; after that, the tip. 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 across Warwickshire.