AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in East Challow: How It Occurs and How to Avoid It
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then set this page aside a moment, keep your ignition and engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in East Challow. Not happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page explains the why it occurs and the ways to avoid it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
No single liquid but two: that is how plenty of newer diesels around East Challow and Letcombe Regis carry, with diesel for your motor. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has one filler of its own. Other cars put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others have the two together under one flap. Diesel goes in at each forecourt call-out, week in, week out. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. It is in the gap that the error lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around East Challow: how it takes place
It's hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Letcombe Hill before work, or in the car park at The Greyhound on the way home.
Then your car is new. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the pour once it has started. Townsend or the heart of East Challow: it is the same few seconds in both.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a drive in Wantage or a forecourt around East Challow.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — plenty of motors mark what goes in each inlet just there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Didcot Parkway, ask before you leave, not when 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 Oxfordshire that is.
- Stop somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Main Street.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both sit under a flap, make sure it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Find at stage two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? So stop right there. Leave out stage five altogether.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in East Challow already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the motor. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Thinning it with more diesel won't work, because AdBlue settles to the bottom rather than blending — and that is where your fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help roll your car clear of the petrol pump if you are at a forecourt — the Mellors of Challow, the Sainsbury's or somewhere else. If you are on your own drive in East Challow, leave the car where it stands.
Already started? Stop once it's sensible, then switch off. East Challow lies under 10 miles from the M4; there, take the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across East Challow is less work than a run of under 15 miles to Oxford, so say.
East Challow: what takes place when our engineers arrive
Anywhere your car has stopped, be it by St Nicholas CofE Primary School, near St. Nicholas Church or at home, our van comes to it. We ask what got in, about how much, and if it has run, since those answers determine the work and the quote. No one heads out until you have had our price over the phone.
Emptying the tank comes next, followed by a full flush of your system. With AdBlue that counts 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. A test comes last: before that, fresh diesel is added, and your filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. Then our technicians fire it up and check it runs correctly before we leave.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after our technicians arrive, as long as the engine has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, take a look at your insurance documents; many include cover for misfuelling.
About East Challow, for a moment
East Challow is a village in Oxfordshire, situated inland at an elevation of 106 metres, approximately 14 miles from Oxford and 57 miles from London. East Challow has a mix of housing types, with semi-detached homes being predominant, and is located near other small settlements such as Townsend and Belmont. East Challow remains a relatively small community, with a population of around 1031 residents. East Challow is also close to its neighbouring village, West Challow.
AdBlue drains across Oxfordshire, East Challow included
Over OX postcodes, our vans covering East Challow — a rural village — work the nearby spots too, West Challow and Belmont included. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting OX12 9.
Shifting your car is not necessary. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Challow and Childrey Cricket Club, a side street close to East Challow Village Hall: our technicians drain the vehicle where it sits. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Grove Airfield, ring and ask rather than assuming.
The short version for East Challow motorists
Before you tip, read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Leave the vehicle switched off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, throughout Oxfordshire.