Ickford: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. In Ickford, finding it before the motor runs normally means a drain and a full flush on the spot. Here before the event? Then what follows explains how it happens and what to stop it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Not one liquid but two: that is how plenty of newer diesels near Ickford and Draycot run, with diesel for the engine. The exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the gas to fresh it, from its own tank.
There is a filler on each tank. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Filling the diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally goes in out of a bottle, tipped by someone who has to stop and think which cap to use. The mistake lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens around Ickford
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Hurry follows from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a drive off School Close, or heading home in the car park outside The Rising Sun.
Then, your hand goes for the cap it knew on the old car — since a hire car, a new car or a company car places the fillers where your last one did not.
Third, the bottle goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in just as easily, and after the pour starts, nothing stops it. Whether it occurs in Little Ickford or the middle of Ickford, it is the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Tiddington or a forecourt in Ickford, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones are often blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- Open the flap and look for a label — plenty of vehicles mark which goes in each inlet just there.
- Can't see it beside the diesel filler? Then check beneath the bonnet or inside the boot — the handbook says where.
- The previous driver will know. Check when you pick up a hire car or fleet car — from Haddenham & Thame Parkway's car park, perhaps — rather than when the warning appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Buckinghamshire that is.
- Pull in on level, motor off, with time in hand — not rushing on the side of Sheldon Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the vehicle on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, and look once more — making sure your diesel filler remained shut throughout. Only then, start the vehicle.
Discover during the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Leave out step five altogether.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Ickford?
The short order of things, starting with no starting the engine. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the vehicle on. Topping up with diesel won't weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
The staff at BP, Asda or another forecourt will normally help to push the vehicle clear if you ask. If you're on your own driveway around Ickford, leave the vehicle where it stands.
Already started? Pull over once it is sensible, then switch off. Ickford lies under 3 miles from the M40; on it, take the next exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Oxford, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Ickford.
What occurs when we arrive around Ickford
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Ickford School, close to Ickford Village Hall or on your own driveway. Which fluid was put in, the amount, and whether it ran: our technicians ask because the answers decide both work and price. Nobody sets off until you have had our price over the phone.
The system is then purged thoroughly, once the tank is emptied. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that counts more here than with petrol. A test is last: before that, fresh diesel is added, and the filter is flushed or replaced as needed. Then we start the engine and confirm it runs smoothly before leaving.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor hasn't run need about half an hour after our engineers arrive. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Ickford
Ickford is a small village in Buckinghamshire, situated near the Oxfordshire border and approximately 8.5 miles from Oxford. Ickford sits in a low-lying area of the Thames Valley at an elevation of around 60 metres, with nearby villages including Little Ickford, Worminghall, and Shabbington. Ickford is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock and a population of around 677 residents. Ickford is also within commuting distance of London, being about 43.6 miles from the capital.
AdBlue drains about Ickford, and Buckinghamshire beyond
Throughout HP postcodes, our vans that cover Ickford — a rural village — work the surrounding places too, Shabbington and Worminghall among them. Quickest of all: quote a HP18 9 postcode to our van.
No need to shift the car. Anywhere it stands — near Saint Nicholas Church, in a layby en route to Ickford Playing Field, on a drive — that's where it is drained. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Saint Peter & Saint Paul, ring and ask rather than guessing.
The short version for Ickford people
Before you tip, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere in Buckinghamshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — so leave the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103.