How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Cherry Willingham
Leave the engine and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain and a thorough flush, done right where your car sits in Cherry Willingham, is normally what it needs when caught before the engine runs. The remainder of this page explains why it takes place and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds your motor — yet plenty of current diesels seen around Cherry Willingham and Washingborough hold a second liquid too. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler on every tank. Many of motors share a single flap for the two, while others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is fuelled at the petrol pump all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less commonly, usually from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in the gap that the mistake happens.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Cherry Willingham: how it happens
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things coming up together.
On a driveway off High Street before work, or in the car park at The Wishing Well on the way home: that's where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car tells you, and once it is empty, limp mode kicks in.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip once it has started. Reepham or the heart of Cherry Willingham: it takes the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt around Cherry Willingham or a driveway over in Heighington. A few seconds, no more.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it instead of going by position.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of cars mark which belongs in each filler just there.
- The handbook shows which it is when your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- 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 Lincoln Central.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Lincolnshire that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Croft Lane.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — after you have found the filler and read the cap.
- The two under a single flap? Then confirm the lid on your diesel side stays closed ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then look again — confirm the diesel filler remained shut the whole time. After that, start the vehicle.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop right there. Stage five is off limits.
Cherry Willingham: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Do not start your motor: that is where the short order of things begins. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of the tank, right where fuel is taken from.
Ask the staff to help roll the car clear of the pump if you're on a forecourt — the JET, the Lincoln Kiln Dried Logs or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Cherry Willingham.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. Come off the M180 — under 25 miles out of Cherry Willingham — at the next exit. A short hop across Cherry Willingham is a smaller job than a run towards Lincoln, under 5 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival in Cherry Willingham, and what happens next
Outside Cherry Willingham Primary Academy, close to Cherry Willingham Methodist Church or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Those replies settle the work and our quote, so our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and whether it has run. During the call itself, you hear the price — ahead of dispatch.
Next: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that matters more here than with petrol. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Before leaving, our engineers start the car and confirm that it is running smoothly.
Using pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor has not run take roughly half an hour once our engineers are there. Your insurer will ask for the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Cherry Willingham and where it is
Cherry Willingham is a village in Lincolnshire, situated approximately 3.4 miles from the city of Lincoln, and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Cherry Willingham sits in a low-lying area of the county, with an elevation of around 28 metres, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Reepham and Fiskerton. Cherry Willingham has a population of around 1398 residents, and its location near Lincoln makes it a commuter-friendly village. Cherry Willingham is also relatively close to the national road network, with London being around 120.5 miles away.
AdBlue drains about Cherry Willingham, and Lincolnshire beyond
Fiskerton and North Greetwell are among the towns near Cherry Willingham, a rural village, that the same vans cover, over LN postcodes. Quote a postcode that starts LN3 4, and the van gets there quickest.
No need to shift the vehicle. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to St Peter and St Paul, a lay-by on the way to Fox Covert, a drive. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Cherry Willingham Church Hall.
Cherry Willingham motorists: the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere around Lincolnshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — and so leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.