How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Duston
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case set this page down a moment, keep the ignition and motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Normally, if your engine hasn't run, it is drained and fully flushed where your car sits in Duston. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of current diesels on the roads round Duston and Upton carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
Each tank has its own filler. Some vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place both together under one flap. Diesel goes in at every forecourt visit, week in, week out. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. It's in that gap that the slip lives.
Duston: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Haste comes from the warning. The vehicle warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a driveway off Eastfield Road, or on the way home in the car park at The Longboat.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Third, the bottle fits: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in as readily, and after the pour begins, no part halts it. Whether it happens in New Duston or the middle of Duston, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Kings Heath or a forecourt around Duston, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Many motors fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask as you pick up a rental or company car — at Northampton's car park, say — not when the warning comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
The day the light goes on, wherever around Northamptonshire, follow this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Midsummer Court.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both sit under a flap, make sure it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and look once more — making sure the diesel cap stayed closed the whole time. After that, start the car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Don't carry on to stage five.
Duston: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting the motor. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the vehicle on. Filling up with diesel won't weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of the tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — Sainsbury's, BP or another — the attendants will usually help roll your car clear, when you ask. If you are on your own drive in Duston, leave the car where it stands.
When the motor has been run already, pull over somewhere safe and turn the car off. The next junction means where to come off if you are on the M1, under 3 miles from Duston. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Duston is less work than a run of under 25 miles towards Milton Keynes, so tell us.
Our arrival in Duston, and what happens next
Our van comes to the car anywhere it stopped — your own driveway, near St. Francis Church, or outside Duston Eldean Primary School. What liquid went in, the amount, and whether it ran: our engineers ask since those replies decide the work and price. No one sets off before you've had our quote by phone.
Emptying your tank comes next, followed by a full flush of your system. Much more than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: the crystals build up, certain metals corrode, and none of that clears out unaided, no matter how long it sits. The filter flushed or, where needed, replaced; fresh diesel in; and then a test of the car. We don't leave until it has been started and is running properly.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour once our technicians get there, as long as the engine hasn't run — and the pumps we use are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents your insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to check yours.
About Duston and where it is
Duston is a suburban area in Northamptonshire, situated approximately 62 miles northwest of London and 16 miles east of Milton Keynes. Duston sits at an elevation of around 114 metres, characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock. Duston is located near other residential areas, including New Duston, Lodge Farm, and Dallington, and has a population of around 5810 residents.
AdBlue drains in Duston and across Northamptonshire
As a residential suburb, Duston has the same vans as surrounding places — Lodge Farm, Dallington — right across NN postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Quote a postcode beginning NN5 6, and our van arrives quickest.
There's no need to move your car. The drain happens on the spot, whether a driveway, a road near St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, or a lay-by towards Errington Park. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Duston Library.
In short, for Duston drivers
First, the cap; after that, the tip. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Leave the car switched off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Northamptonshire.