How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Dunchurch
Leave your engine and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Normally, if your motor has not turned, it is emptied and thoroughly purged where the vehicle sits around Dunchurch. The remainder of this page covers why it takes place and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you're reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads about Dunchurch and Cawston carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream and cleans it.
Every tank comes with a filler of its own. 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 pump all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less commonly, normally from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur around Dunchurch?
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
Hurry follows from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a driveway off Daventry Road, or on the way home in the car park at The Dun Cow.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — yet a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That's the second factor: an unfamiliar car.
A spout-topped bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, after started, carries on. It takes seconds, be it in Lime Tree Village or right in the heart of Dunchurch.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A few seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Overslade or a forecourt around Dunchurch.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- On plenty of motors, the size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — many motors mark which belongs in each filler right there.
- 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 it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Rugby, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
Wherever around Warwickshire the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Rugby Road, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park then switch off properly.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. When the two share a flap, make sure it is shut before the bottle comes up.
- Stop when the tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, tip gently through the own spout.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Find at the second or third step that the bottle went in the wrong tank? That's where you stop. Don't carry on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Dunchurch already?
Do not start your engine: that is where the short order of things begins. Keep the ignition off as well, because on plenty of diesels it alone starts the pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it is the BP or the Sainsburys, ask the staff to help push the car clear of the petrol pump. If you're on your own drive around Dunchurch, leave the car where it sits.
Already run? Stop once it is sensible, then switch off. On the M45, under a mile from Dunchurch, that means the next junction. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Coventry, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Dunchurch.
Dunchurch: what happens when our engineers turn up
Our engineers come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Dunchurch Boughton Church of England Infant Academy and Nursery, close to Lord Scott statue or on your own driveway. We ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, since the answers decide this work and our price. On the call itself, you hear our quote — before anything else.
Emptying your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the fuel system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Then our engineers fire it up and confirm it runs properly before leaving.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your engine hasn't run take roughly half an hour once our technicians arrive. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours once this job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Dunchurch itself
Dunchurch is a village in Warwickshire, situated inland at an elevation of 124 metres, approximately 10 miles south of Coventry. Dunchurch has a population of around 1772 people, with predominantly detached housing. Dunchurch is located near other villages such as Lime Tree Village, Thurlaston, and Bilton, and is about 75 miles northwest of London.
AdBlue drains around Dunchurch and across Warwickshire
Over CV postcodes, our vans covering Dunchurch — a rural village — work the nearby locations too, Bilton and Thurlaston among them. A postcode starting CV22 6 gets our van to you fastest.
No need to move your car. The drain takes place right there, whether a driveway, a road by Dunchurch Community Library, or a lay-by on the way to Cock Robin Plantation. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of St Peter, ring and ask rather than guessing.
For Dunchurch people, the short version
First, the cap; then, the tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere around Warwickshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — so leave it off and call 0333 366 0103.