Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Emscote: Why It Happens
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. Around Emscote, finding it before your engine runs normally leaves draining and a full flush on the spot. Reading before the event? In that case what follows explains why it happens and what to stop it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Not one fluid but two: that is what many newer diesels near Emscote and Packmores run, with diesel for the engine. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to fresh them, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on a lot of motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less commonly. It is in that gap that the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur around Emscote?
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Greville Road before work, or in the car park outside Lord Nelson on the way home.
Then the car is strange. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part halts the tip after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It takes seconds, whether out in Cliff Hill or right in the centre of Emscote.
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 Old Milverton or a forecourt in Emscote.
- Read the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally are not.
- The size. On plenty of motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of motors have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it is when the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask as you pick up a hire car or fleet car — from Warwick's car park, say — not when the warning comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Warwickshire that is.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time in hand — never rushing on the side of Spinney Hill.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — after you've found your filler and read it.
- The diesel cap stays on. When both share a flap, make sure it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then check again — making sure your diesel cap stayed closed the whole time. Only then, start the car.
Find during the second or third stage that the bottle went in the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Never go on to stage five.
Emscote: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Brief order, then. Top of it: the motor stays off. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the vehicle on. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — BP, Tesco or another — the attendants will usually help roll your car clear, when you ask. Your own drive around Emscote is where it stays.
When your engine has run already, pull over safely then turn the car off. Emscote sits under 3 miles from the M40; on it, take the first junction. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Emscote is smaller a job than a trip of under 10 miles to Coventry, so tell us.
When our engineers arrive in Emscote, what takes place?
The van comes to the car wherever it stopped — your own driveway, beside The Gap Community Centre, or by All Saints' CofE Junior School. Both the work and the price depend on three answers — which liquid, which quantity, and if it has run — so our technicians ask. That price comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
The fuel system is then cleaned thoroughly, after your tank is drained. 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 fuel filter is flushed — or replaced, where required — fresh diesel goes in, and then your vehicle gets tested. The motor is started next and tested to confirm it runs correctly, all before our engineers leave.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour once we arrive, provided your motor has not run — and the pumps we use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Emscote itself
Emscote is a suburban area in Warwickshire, situated on the River Avon at an elevation of 66 metres, with nearby places including Cliff Hill and Guys Cliffe. Emscote is located approximately 8 miles south of Coventry and 82 miles northwest of London, with Woodloes Park also in the vicinity. Emscote has a population of around 5506 residents, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Emscote's riverside setting provides a distinctive character to the area.
Emscote and Warwickshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Guys Cliffe and Woodloes Park are among the towns near Emscote, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, over CV postcodes. Fastest of all: quote a CV34 5 postcode to our van.
Shifting the vehicle isn't needed. We drain it where it is — a side street close to All Saints, a lay-by on the way to The Spinney, a drive. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Guy of Warwick.
The short version for Emscote people
First, the cap; after that, the tip. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it stands, anywhere around Warwickshire: switch the car off then ring 0333 366 0103.