Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Hinchingbrooke: Why It Happens
Leave the motor and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before the motor runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Hinchingbrooke. The rest of this page covers why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads round Hinchingbrooke and Godmanchester carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Other cars put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others have both side by side under one flap. At the pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less commonly, normally from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in that gap that the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place in Hinchingbrooke?
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Hinchingbrooke Park Road before work, or in the car park at Sandford House on the way home.
The old car's filler is where your hand goes — yet a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That's a second factor: an unfamiliar motor.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the pour after it has started. Huntingdon or the middle of Hinchingbrooke: it is the same few seconds in both.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Check these first, at a forecourt in Hinchingbrooke or a drive over in Belle Isle. Seconds, that's all.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Look for it.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by your 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 at Huntingdon.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
The day the light comes on, anywhere in Cambridgeshire, use this routine.
- Not in a rush on the side of Brampton Road, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- The two under a single flap? So make sure the cap on the diesel filler is still closed before raising the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop right there. Step five stays off limits.
Hinchingbrooke: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Brief order, then. First: the motor remains unstarted. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of your tank, just where fuel is taken from.
At a forecourt — Sainsbury's, another forecourt nearby or any other — the staff will usually help push the car away, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive around Hinchingbrooke.
Where your engine has run by now, pull over somewhere safe and switch the car off. Hinchingbrooke lies under 5 miles from the A1(M); on it, take the first junction. Mileage matters — a short hop across Hinchingbrooke is a smaller job than driving under 25 miles to Cambridge — so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival in Hinchingbrooke, and what takes place next
We come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Cromwell Academy, close to LRC or on your own driveway. Those answers determine the work and the quote, and so our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. The quote comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
The system is then purged thoroughly, after that tank is emptied. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither clears away unaided. Hence it matters more. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. We don't leave until it has been started and is running properly.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after our engineers get there, provided the motor hasn't run — and the pumps we use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet after dark beside a house. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. It is worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Hinchingbrooke and where it is
Hinchingbrooke is a suburban area situated on the lakeside in Cambridgeshire, with a relatively low elevation of 28 metres. Hinchingbrooke lies near the city of Cambridge, approximately 15.9 miles away, and is also close to other nearby places such as Huntingdon and Stukeley. Hinchingbrooke has a population of around 1169 people, predominantly residing in flat-type housing. Hinchingbrooke is located within commuting distance to London, being around 56.8 miles away.
AdBlue drains about Hinchingbrooke, and Cambridgeshire beyond
As a residential suburb, Hinchingbrooke shares its vans nearby places — Stukeley, Newtown — all the way across PE postcodes and the wider area around them. Quickest of all: give a PE29 6 postcode to the van.
Shifting the vehicle is not needed. Draining takes place right there, be it a drive, a street by Performing Arts Centre, or a layby towards Rose Garden. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Sebastapol Cannon, ring and ask rather than guessing.
For Hinchingbrooke drivers, the short version
Tip nothing until you've read the cap. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it wherever it is, wherever across Cambridgeshire: keep the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.