Granborough: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
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. Caught before the motor runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Granborough. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page covers the reasons it happens and the ways to avoid it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Many modern diesels on the roads around Granborough and Winslow carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of cars have a single flap for both, while some put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in on each forecourt call-out, again and again. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually goes in out of a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think which filler it needs. Mistakes happen in that gap between them.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens in Granborough
Carelessness seldom explains it. What does is three things lining up at once.
Haste follows from the warning. The vehicle tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off Green End, or heading home in the car park outside The Crown.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part halts the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Granborough or out in North Marston.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A few seconds is all these take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a drive in East Claydon or a forecourt around Granborough.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually don't.
- Plenty of cars fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- Can't find it next to the diesel inlet? Then check below the bonnet or in the boot — the owner's manual says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Aylesbury Vale Parkway? Ask whoever drove the vehicle last before leaving, rather than when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
On the day the light appears — wherever it is in Buckinghamshire — a simple routine to follow.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Winslow Road.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — once you've found your filler and read the cap.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both sit under a flap, confirm it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Do not go on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Granborough?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting the motor. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
The attendants at JET, Gulf or another forecourt will usually help to push your car away when you ask. Your own driveway in Granborough is the place it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your motor has already run. Granborough lies under 15 miles from the M40; on it, use the next exit. Distance counts — a short hop across Granborough is a smaller job than heading under 15 miles towards Milton Keynes — so tell us roughly how far it went.
Granborough: what happens when we turn up
Outside North Marston Church of England School, near Granborough Village Hall or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Which liquid was put in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our technicians ask since those answers decide both work and quote. That price comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
Next: draining, then a thorough flush of the entire system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more here than with petrol. Filter flushed or, where it must be, swapped; fresh diesel in; and then a check of the car. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
Unstarted cars usually need a half-hour visit from the moment we arrive. The kit is fine on a live filling station, and quiet enough for a residential street late at night. Nothing upfront; you settle up that day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. It is worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Granborough itself
Granborough is a small village in Buckinghamshire, situated in the inland countryside of the South East region. Granborough sits at an elevation of around 117 metres, approximately 43 miles from London and 10 miles from Milton Keynes. Granborough is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock and rural setting, near to neighbouring villages such as North Marston and Shipton.
Granborough and Buckinghamshire: AdBlue drains across the area
As a rural village, Granborough shares its vans nearby places — Tinkers End, Shipton — all the way through MK postcodes and the wider area around them. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting MK18 3.
Shifting the car isn't needed. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Tuckey Covert, a side street close to Granborough: St John the Baptist: our technicians drain it where it sits. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
In short, for Granborough people
Pour no AdBlue till you have read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Leave the car switched off and phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, throughout Buckinghamshire.