Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Elton on the Hill: Why It Occurs
Pause here for a moment if the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out just where your vehicle stands in Elton on the Hill, is normally what it takes when caught before your engine runs. If you're 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 car, and its separate tank
Not one liquid but two: that is what plenty of modern diesels around Elton on the Hill and Granby carry, with diesel feeding your engine. AdBlue goes to your 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's the layout on a lot of cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Filling your diesel side at the pump happens all the time. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less commonly. The mistake grows in the gap between them.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place in Elton on the Hill
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the vehicle, and running dry means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Sutton Lane, or at the pub in the village on the way home that evening.
Unfamiliar motors are second, too. Rentals, new motors and company motors put their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap it 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 tip after it has started. Sutton or the middle of Elton on the Hill: it takes the same few seconds either way.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Be it a Elton on the Hill forecourt or a driveway over in Aslockton, spend a few seconds over these before any goes in.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually are not.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on many vehicles. Look for it.
- Cannot find it next to the diesel inlet? Then check beneath the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook will say where.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Elton & Orston.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Nottinghamshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Grantham Road, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park and switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. When both sit under a flap, make sure it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Before you start the vehicle, close the cap and check again that the diesel cap was never opened off.
Find during the second or third stage that the bottle went in the diesel tank? That's where you stop. Leave out stage five altogether.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Elton on the Hill?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting the motor. The fuel pump runs on many diesels the moment your ignition is switched on — so leave it off. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
The attendants at Esso, Essar or any forecourt will normally lend a hand to push your car clear if asked. If you're on your own driveway around Elton on the Hill, leave the vehicle where it stands.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Leave the M1 — under 25 miles out of Elton on the Hill — at the first exit. About how far did it go? Crossing Elton on the Hill is smaller a job than a run of under 15 miles to Nottingham, so tell us.
Our arrival around Elton on the Hill, and what happens next
The van reaches the vehicle anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, near St Michael and All Angels, or by Orston Primary School. Both the work and the price rest on three replies — which liquid, which amount, and if it has run — so our technicians ask. You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off.
After that: draining, then a full flush of the whole 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. After the filter has been flushed — or replaced, if required — clean diesel goes in, and then your car is tested. Next our technicians start it and check it runs correctly before we leave.
Unstarted vehicles mostly mean a half-hour job from the moment we arrive. The kit is fine on a live forecourt, and quiet enough for a driveway late at night. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Elton on the Hill
Elton on the Hill is a small village in Nottinghamshire, situated in the East Midlands region of England, with a population of around 507 people. Elton on the Hill lies approximately 12 miles south of Nottingham and 104 miles north of London, in a low-lying area at an elevation of about 40 metres. Elton on the Hill is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock and rural setting, near to other villages such as Sutton and Whatton-in-the-Vale. Elton on the Hill remains a quiet, residential community with a strong sense of local identity.
AdBlue drains round Elton on the Hill, and Nottinghamshire beyond
As a rural village, Elton on the Hill shares its vans nearby places — Whatton-in-the-Vale, Orston — all the way through NG postcodes and the wider area around them. Quote a postcode beginning NG13 9, and the van gets there quickest.
Moving the vehicle is not needed. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street close to Jubilee Hall, a lay-by on the way to Colmanhill Covert, a driveway. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Orston Methodist Chapel, ring and ask instead of assuming.
For Elton on the Hill motorists, the short version
First, the cap; after that, the pour. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it is, wherever around Nottinghamshire: switch the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.