Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Greens Norton
Keep your engine and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain and a full flush, carried out just where your car sits in Greens Norton, is normally what it needs when found before the engine runs. Reading before the event? Then the rest explains why it happens and what to stop it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Many newer diesels on the roads around Greens Norton and Towcester carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, and there spraying treats the fumes.
Each tank has its own filler. Many of cars share a single flap for both, whereas others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less often, normally from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in the gap that the mistake happens.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place around Greens Norton
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things coming up together.
On a drive off Mansfield Court before work, or in the car park outside Greens Norton British Legion Club heading home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low your car warns you, and if it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — yet a rental car, a new motor or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's the second thing: a strange car.
Lastly, the spout goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in just as readily, and once the pour starts, no part halts it. Whether it happens in Duncote or the middle of Greens Norton, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Greens Norton forecourt or a drive out in Foscote, take a few seconds on these before any is poured in.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- On many vehicles, size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — many motors show which belongs in each filler right there.
- Cannot find it beside the diesel inlet? Then look beneath the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook says where.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Northampton, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
Anywhere across Northamptonshire the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of High Street.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It sounds silly. It works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two sit under a flap, make sure it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Shut the cap, and look once more — confirm your diesel filler remained shut throughout. After that, start your car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't carry on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Greens Norton?
Brief order, then. First: the engine remains unstarted. Do not switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the staff to help push the car clear of the petrol pump if you are at a forecourt — the Shell, the BP Connect or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive around Greens Norton.
When your motor has run already, stop somewhere safe and switch the car off. Greens Norton lies under 10 miles from the M1; there, take the first exit. About how far did it go? Crossing Greens Norton is less a job than a run of under 15 miles towards Milton Keynes, so tell us.
Our arrival in Greens Norton, and what occurs next
We come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Greens Norton Church of England Primary School, close to Greens Norton Post or on your own driveway. Those answers settle the work and the quote, and so our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and if it's run. That quote comes on the call, before any van leaves.
The fuel system is then rinsed thoroughly, once your tank is emptied. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and none of it clears away unaided. That is why it matters more. Testing comes last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the filter is flushed or changed if necessary. After that we start the car and check it runs correctly before leaving.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor has not run take about half an hour after our technicians arrive. No money in advance; you settle up on the day. At the end, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Greens Norton itself
Greens Norton is a village in southern Northamptonshire, situated in a rural area at an elevation of around 111 metres. Greens Norton lies approximately 13 miles from Milton Keynes and 58 miles northwest of London, with nearby villages including Duncote, Caldecote, and Bradden. Greens Norton has a population of around 1525 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
AdBlue drains round Greens Norton, and Northamptonshire beyond
Over NN postcodes, our teams that cover Greens Norton — a rural village — work the surrounding places too, Bradden and Caldecote among them. A postcode starting NN12 8 gets the van to you fastest.
There's no need to shift the vehicle. The drain takes place on the spot, be it a drive, a street near Saint Bartholomew, or a layby on the way to Greens Norton Pocket Park. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Greens Norton Community Centre.
The short version for Greens Norton motorists
Tip no AdBlue until you've read the cap. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it where it stands, anywhere in Northamptonshire: switch the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.