How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Deeping Gate
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? In that case set this page aside a moment, leave the ignition and engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. Usually, if the motor has not run, it's drained and fully cleaned where the vehicle sits around Deeping Gate. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page explains the reasons it takes place and the ways to avoid it for good.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Many modern diesels on the roads about Deeping Gate and The Rectory carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on many vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. It is in that gap that the slip lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank happen around Deeping Gate?
It's seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Haste comes from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a drive off Deeping St James Road, or on the way home in the car park outside The Bell.
Next, the hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old motor — because a hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
Nothing halts 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. Whether it happens in Deeping St James or the middle of Deeping Gate, it's the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all these take — so check them before you tip anything, on a drive in Frognall or a forecourt in Deeping Gate.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally are not.
- Many cars fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of vehicles carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- Cannot see it beside your diesel filler? In that case check beneath the bonnet or inside your boot — the owner's manual will say where.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask when you collect a rental or company car — from Peterborough's car park, say — not once the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Cambridgeshire that is.
- Pull in somewhere level, engine off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of Sutton's Lane.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- Both behind one flap? Then confirm the cap on the diesel filler is still shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? Then stop just there. Do not go on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Deeping Gate?
Brief order, then. Top of it: your engine remains off. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the car on. Topping up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of your tank, right where fuel is taken from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it is the The Co-operative or the BP, ask the attendants to help push the vehicle away from the pump. If you are on your own driveway around Deeping Gate, leave the vehicle where it stands.
Already started? Stop when it is safe, then turn off. Deeping Gate sits under 10 miles from the Great North Road; there, use the next exit. A short hop across Deeping Gate is a smaller job than a run towards Peterborough, under 10 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival around Deeping Gate, and what occurs next
Wherever your car has stopped, whether by Deeping St James Community Primary School, near Deeping Baptist Church or on your own drive, the van travels to it. Both the work and the quote depend on three replies — which fluid, what quantity, and if it's run — so our engineers ask. On the call itself, you hear our quote — ahead of dispatch.
Then that tank is drained and your system purged thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters 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 fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Before we go, we start it and check that it's running smoothly.
With pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor hasn't run need about half an hour after we arrive. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents your insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. It's worth checking your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Deeping Gate, briefly
Deeping Gate is a village situated on the banks of the River Welland in Cambridgeshire, with a low elevation of around 9 metres. Deeping Gate lies near the city of Peterborough, approximately 7 miles to the east, and is part of a network of nearby settlements including Deeping St James and Market Deeping. Deeping Gate has a population of around 1597 people, predominantly living in detached housing.
AdBlue drains across Cambridgeshire, Deeping Gate included
As a village, Deeping Gate shares its vans nearby places — Northborough, Market Deeping — all the way across PE postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Quickest of all: quote a PE6 9 postcode to our van.
There's no need to move your car. Anywhere it stands — beside The Deepings Methodist Church, on a lay-by en route to Hereward Way Play Area, on a drive — that is where it gets drained. Guessing won't help behind Our Lady of Lincoln and St Guthlac, on a boundary, or somewhere hard to pin down; phone and check.
For Deeping Gate motorists, the short version
Always, the cap; after that, the tip. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Keep it off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across Cambridgeshire.