Childrey: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Stop reading a minute when the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Usually, if the engine has not run, it's drained and thoroughly flushed where your car is in Childrey. Not happened yet? Below, the page covers the reasons it takes place and the how to avoid it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads about Childrey and East Challow carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. AdBlue goes to your 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 each tank. Many of vehicles have a single flap for both, whereas others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled on each filling station visit, again and again. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, tipped by a driver who must stop and think what filler to use. The error lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen in Childrey?
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
On a drive off Chapel Way before work, or in the car park outside The Hatchet heading home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and once it is gone, limp mode follows.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part stops the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it takes place in West Challow or the middle of Childrey, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Letcombe Regis or a forecourt around Childrey, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- On many motors, the size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Lift the flap and look for a label — many vehicles mark what belongs in each filler right there.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler is if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Didcot Parkway? Ask whoever drove the vehicle last before leaving, not once the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Wherever across Oxfordshire the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Not in a rush on the side of New Road, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park then switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, 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.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and check again that your diesel cap never opened off.
Discover at the second or third step that the bottle went in the diesel filler? That is where you stop. Never go on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Childrey?
Brief order, then. First: the engine stays unstarted. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
Ask the attendants to help roll your car away from the petrol pump if you're on a forecourt — the Mellors of Challow, the Sainsbury's or anywhere else. On your own drive around Childrey? Then the car stays put.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Come off the M4 — under 10 miles out of Childrey — at the next junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Oxford, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Childrey.
Childrey: what occurs when we get there
Our engineers come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside The Ridgeway Church of England (C) Primary School, close to St. Mary's Church or on your own drive. Which fluid got in, the amount, and whether it ran: our technicians ask since those answers set the work and quote. The quote comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
After that: a drain, then a full flush of the entire system. More than with petrol, it matters here: crystals build up, certain metals are attacked, and none of that washes out unaided, no matter how long it is left. Testing comes at the end: before that, fresh diesel is added, and your filter is cleaned or changed if necessary. The motor is started next and checked to confirm it runs smoothly, all before our technicians head off.
Unstarted cars usually need a half-hour visit after arrival. The equipment is safe on a live forecourt, and quiet enough for a residential street late at night. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents your insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. It's worth looking at your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Childrey, for a moment
Childrey is a small village in Oxfordshire, situated in the South East of England, with an elevation of around 111 metres. Childrey lies approximately 14.9 miles from Oxford and 58.3 miles from London, placing it in a rural setting with nearby villages including West Challow and Sparsholt. Childrey has a population of around 527 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Childrey is surrounded by rolling countryside, characteristic of the Oxfordshire landscape.
AdBlue drains in Childrey and across Oxfordshire
Childrey is a rural village, and the teams that cover it also work the places near it, Sparsholt and Townsend among them, across the OX postcode area. A postcode starting OX12 9 gets the van to you fastest.
There's no need to move your car. Wherever it stands — near West Challow Village Hall, on a lay-by en route to Childrey Playing Field, at home — that is where it gets emptied. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of St. Lawrence's Church.
For Childrey drivers, the short version
Pour nothing until you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it sits, anywhere across Oxfordshire.