How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Farmoor
Stop reading for a moment when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Farmoor. Here in advance? In that case the rest covers how it happens and what to prevent it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Diesel goes to the motor — yet plenty of current diesels seen about Farmoor and Dean Court hold another fluid as well. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to clean them, from a separate tank.
Each tank comes with one 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 the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, the diesel side gets filled all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less commonly, normally from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Farmoor: how it happens
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things coming up together.
Hurry follows from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off Mayfield Road, or heading home in the car park outside the pub in the village.
Then the vehicle is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Lastly, the bottle goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in just as easily, and after the pour starts, nothing halts it. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Farmoor or out in Filchampstead.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Wytham or a forecourt around Farmoor, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally aren't.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the flap and check for a label — plenty of cars show what belongs in which filler just there.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by the diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- 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 at Oxford.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Oxfordshire that is.
- Switch off once parked — level ground, motor off, and never in a rush by Cumnor Road on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It works.
- The two behind a single flap? Then make sure the cap on the diesel side stays shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Before starting the vehicle, close the cap and look again that your diesel cap was never came off.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop just there. Don't go on to stage five.
Farmoor: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting your motor. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — so keep it off. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
On a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, BP or any other — the attendants will normally help roll your car away, when you ask. At home in Farmoor? Then the vehicle remains where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. Leave the M40 — under 10 miles out of Farmoor — at the next junction. A short hop across Farmoor is a smaller job than a run towards Oxford, under 5 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Farmoor: what happens when we get there
By Eynsham Community Primary School, near Farmoor Village Hall or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Both the work and the quote depend on three answers — what liquid, what quantity, and if it has run — so our technicians ask. On the call itself, you hear the price — before anything else.
After that: draining, then a full flush of the entire system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and none of that washes out by itself. Hence it counts more. Testing comes last: before that, fresh diesel is added, and your filter is cleaned or replaced if necessary. Before we leave, our engineers start the engine and check that it is running correctly.
With pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine hasn't run take roughly half an hour after our technicians arrive. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Farmoor and where it is
Farmoor is a small village in Oxfordshire, situated on the banks of a lake at an elevation of 67 metres. Farmoor lies approximately 4 miles west of Oxford and 55 miles from London, with nearby villages including Filchampstead, Swinford, and Eynsham. Farmoor has a population of around 551 people and is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock. Farmoor enjoys a scenic lakeside setting, making it a desirable residential location.
AdBlue drains in Farmoor and across Oxfordshire
Farmoor is a village, and the teams that cover it also work the towns near it, Swinford and Eynsham among them, across the OX postcode area. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting OX2 9.
The vehicle does not need to shift. Wherever it sits — near St Mary's Church, on a lay-by heading to Mayfield Road Recreation Area, on a drive — that's where it gets cleared. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Oxford Sailing Club.
Farmoor motorists: the short version
Tip nothing until you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Oxfordshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway — so leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103.