Collyweston: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Keep your engine and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. In Collyweston, catching it before your motor turns normally means draining and a thorough flush where it stands. The remainder of this page covers why it occurs and how to make sure it does not — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads round Collyweston and Duddington carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, where a spray cleans the gas.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. Far less commonly, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
Collyweston: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Ketton Road, or outside The Collyweston Slater on the way home after work.
Unfamiliar motors come second, as well. Hire cars, new cars and company cars put their fillers differently, and the hand reaches for the cap used on the old one.
Nothing stops the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Geeston or the middle of Collyweston: it is the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Easton on the Hill or a forecourt around Collyweston, check these. They take a few seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually is not. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many cars have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Stamford, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
For the day the light comes on — anywhere it is across Northamptonshire — a simple routine to follow.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Back Lane.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — after you've found your filler and read it.
- Both under one flap? Then make sure the cap on the diesel side stays shut before lifting the bottle.
- Stop when your tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip gently using the built-in spout.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Discover at the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Skip step five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Collyweston?
Don't start the engine: that's where the short order of things begins. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment your ignition goes on — and so keep it off. Filling up with diesel will not weaken it: instead, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
The attendants at BP, Morrisons or any forecourt will normally help pushing the car clear if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around Collyweston.
Where your engine has been run already, pull over somewhere safe and turn the vehicle off. Collyweston lies under 15 miles from the Great North Road; there, take the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Collyweston is less a job than a trip of under 15 miles to Peterborough, and so say.
Our arrival around Collyweston, and what occurs next
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Ketton Church of England Primary School, close to Collyweston Village Hall or on your own drive. Which liquid got in, the quantity, and whether it ran: we ask because those answers decide the work and quote. On the call itself, you are told our price — ahead of anything else.
Emptying the tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of that clears away by itself. That is why it counts more. Filter cleaned or, if needed, replaced; fresh diesel in; and then a test of your car. We don't go until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour once our technicians arrive, as long as the engine has not run — and the pumps we use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Collyweston and where it is
Collyweston is a village in Northamptonshire, situated on the River Welland at an elevation of 79 metres. Collyweston lies near the villages of Geeston and Ketton, and is approximately 12.5 miles from Peterborough. Collyweston has a population of around 564 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Collyweston is also within commuting distance of London, being around 78.4 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Northamptonshire, Collyweston included
Over PE postcodes, our vans covering Collyweston — a village — work the surrounding places too, Ketton and Aldgate among them. Quote a postcode that starts PE9 3, and our van arrives quickest.
The vehicle remains put. Draining happens right there, whether a driveway, a street by St. Andrew's Church, Collyweston, or a layby towards Vigo Wood. Assuming doesn't help behind St Mary the Virgin, Ketton, on a border, or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and ask.
Collyweston drivers: the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, across Northamptonshire.