Green End: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Stop reading for a moment when the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. In Green End, catching it before the motor runs usually means draining and a full flush where it stands. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Plenty of current diesels on the roads about Green End and Glatton carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Each tank has its own filler. Many of cars share a single flap for both, while some move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at each forecourt call-out, again and again. Rarely filled, AdBlue usually goes in from a bottle, tipped by a driver who must stop and think which filler to use. The mistake lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place in Green End
It's rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Scotney Way before work, or in the car park outside The Bell Inn on the way home.
New-to-you motors come second, as well. Rentals, new motors and company vehicles place their fillers in new places, and the hand reaches for the cap used on the old one.
Third, the bottle goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as easily, and after the tip begins, nothing halts it. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Green End or out in Sawtry.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A few seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Steeple Gidding or a forecourt around Green End.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- On many cars, size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many vehicles have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by the diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Huntingdon.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
When the light goes on, anywhere around Cambridgeshire, use this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Holborn View.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, but it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and check again — making sure the diesel filler stayed shut the whole time. Only then, start your car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Skip stage five entirely.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Green End?
Brief order, then. First: your motor remains off. The fuel pump starts on many 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 don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the staff to help roll the car away from the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Gulf, the BP or anywhere else. Your own driveway around Green End is the place it stays.
Already started? Pull over once it is sensible, then switch off. Green End sits under a mile from the A1(M); there, use the next junction. A short hop across Green End is a smaller job than a run towards Peterborough, under 10 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
When we turn up around Green End, what takes place?
The van comes to your car anywhere it has come to rest — your own drive, beside Sawtry Parish Council, or by Sawtry Infants' School. Both the work and the quote depend on three replies — what liquid, what quantity, and if it's run — so our technicians ask. The quote comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
Your system is then cleaned thoroughly, once the tank is emptied. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and none of that clears away unaided. That is why it matters more. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Before we leave, our technicians start it and make sure that it is running correctly.
If the engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, have a look at your insurance documents; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Green End itself
Green End is a suburban area in Cambridgeshire, situated inland at an elevation of 16 metres, and is located approximately 9.8 miles from Peterborough. Green End has a population of around 2243 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Green End is also near several other small settlements, including Sawtry, Coppingford, and Conington, and is about 64.2 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Cambridgeshire, Green End included
Coppingford and Conington are among the towns near Green End, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, throughout PE postcodes. Quickest of all: quote a PE28 5 postcode for our van.
Moving your car is not necessary. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Lifestyles at Sawtry, a lay-by on the way to St. Judiths Field, a drive. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Sawtry Library.
The short version for Green End drivers
Always, the cap; then, the tip. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere in Cambridgeshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — so leave the car off then ring 0333 366 0103.