Great Abington: 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 engine and your ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. In Great Abington, finding it before your engine runs usually leaves a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the page covers the why it happens and the how to avoid it altogether.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Not one liquid but two: that is what many modern diesels around Great Abington and Hildersham run, with diesel for your motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
Every tank has one filler of its own. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place both together behind one flap. Diesel goes in at each forecourt call-out, again and again. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less often, usually from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in that gap that the mistake happens.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens around Great Abington
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from your car, and letting it run dry means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Station Road, perhaps outside Three Tuns on the way home that evening.
The old car's cap is where the hand goes — but a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That is a second factor: an unfamiliar car.
A spout-topped bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after begun, carries on. It takes seconds, be it out in Little Abington or bang in the centre of Great Abington.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Check these first, at a forecourt around Great Abington or a drive over in Sawston. A few seconds, that's all.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally are not.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Whittlesford Parkway? Ask the person who drove it last before leaving, rather than when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Cambridgeshire that is.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time to spare — never rushing on the side of A505.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the car, close the cap and check again that your diesel cap was never came off.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Great Abington already?
Brief list, then. First: the engine stays off. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels as soon as the ignition is switched on — so keep it off. Filling up with diesel will not weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of that tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
The staff at Shell, Acorn Garage or another forecourt will usually help pushing the car away if you ask. At home in Great Abington? So the car stays where it is.
When your engine has run by now, pull over somewhere safe then switch the vehicle off. The next exit is where to come off if you are on the M11, under 3 miles from Great Abington. About how far did it go? Hopping across Great Abington is less a job than a trip of under 10 miles towards Cambridge, and so say.
Great Abington: what takes place when our technicians arrive
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Great Abington Primary School, close to Fitness Suite or on your own drive. Our engineers ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, since the replies determine this work and our quote. On the phone call itself, you are told our quote — ahead of anything else.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Much more than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: the crystals form, certain metals corrode, and nothing clears away on its own, no matter how long it is left. The filter flushed or, if needed, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a test of your vehicle. Your engine is started next and checked to confirm it runs correctly, all before we go.
With pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor has not run take roughly half an hour after our technicians arrive. Your insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Great Abington itself
Great Abington is a small village in Cambridgeshire, situated on the banks of the River Granta at an elevation of around 37 metres. Great Abington lies close to the city of Cambridge, about 7 miles to the southeast, and is part of a network of rural communities including Little Abington, Babraham, and Pampisford. Great Abington has a population of approximately 514 people, living in predominantly detached houses. Great Abington is also within commuting distance of London, about 45 miles to the southwest.
AdBlue drains across Cambridgeshire, Great Abington included
As a village, Great Abington has the same vans as nearby areas — Babraham, Pampisford — right across CB postcodes and the wider area beyond. A postcode starting CB21 6 gets our van to you fastest.
There's no need to move the vehicle. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Lagden's Grove, a side street close to St Mary's Church: our engineers drain the vehicle where it sits. Tricky to pin down, like the back of St Mary The Virgin? Close to a border? Checking is better than assuming, and so ring.
The short version for Great Abington drivers
Read the cap before you tip. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, anywhere around Cambridgeshire: keep the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103.