Kingsthorpe: 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 the engine and your ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. In Kingsthorpe, finding it before the motor runs usually leaves draining and a thorough flush where it stands. Not happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page explains the why it occurs and the ways to avoid it altogether.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Plenty of newer diesels around Kingsley Park, as well as Kingsthorpe, carry on two fluids; the motor gets just the diesel. Its own tank holds it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, where a spray cleans the fumes.
There is a filler for every tank. Many of vehicles share a single flap for both, while others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is topped up at the pump all the time. Seldom filled, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think which cap it needs. That gap is where the slip lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen around Kingsthorpe?
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
Haste follows from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a driveway off Thornton Hall Close, or on the way home in the car park outside The Cock.
New-to-you motors come second, too. Hire cars, new motors and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and the hand reaches for the cap used on the old one.
No part stops the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it happens in Queens Park or the middle of Kingsthorpe, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these first, on a forecourt around Kingsthorpe or a drive over in Sunnyside. A few seconds, no more.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler is if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Northampton.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Northamptonshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Mill Lane, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park then switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two share a flap, make sure it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Finish once your tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour gently using the built-in spout.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Stage five stays off limits.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Kingsthorpe already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. Keep the ignition off as well, since on many diesels switching it on by itself runs the fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it is the Texaco or the BP, ask the attendants to help roll the car away from the pump. If you are on your own drive around Kingsthorpe, leave the car where it sits.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. Come off the M1 — under 5 miles out of Kingsthorpe — at the first junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Milton Keynes, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Kingsthorpe.
Our arrival around Kingsthorpe, and what takes place next
By Kingsthorpe Village Primary School, close to Kingsthorpe Community Centre or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, we come to it. Our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and if it has run, because the answers decide the work and our quote. No one sets off before you've heard our price by phone.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. More than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: crystals build up, some metals corrode, and none of that clears away on its own, however long it is left. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Before we leave, our engineers fire it up and check that it's running correctly.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once we get there, as long as the motor hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet at night beside a house. No money in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. While we travel, take a look at your policy; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Kingsthorpe and where it is
Kingsthorpe is a suburban area in Northamptonshire, situated on the River Nene at an elevation of around 87 metres. Kingsthorpe lies approximately 61 miles northwest of London and 16 miles southeast of Milton Keynes, with nearby places including Queens Park and Kings Heath. Kingsthorpe has a population of around 5564 people, predominantly living in terraced housing.
AdBlue drains round Kingsthorpe, and Northamptonshire beyond
As a residential suburb, Kingsthorpe shares its vans surrounding places — Kings Heath, Kingsthorpe Hollow — all the way across NN postcodes and the wider area around them. Give a postcode that starts NN2 6, and the van arrives quickest.
The vehicle does not need to shift. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near Kingsthorpe War Memorial, a lay-by on the way to Kingsthorpe Park, a driveway. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Osborne Road Gospel Hall.
In short, for Kingsthorpe drivers
Tip no AdBlue until you have read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Keep the vehicle switched off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across Northamptonshire.