AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Little Ickford: How It Happens and How to Stop It
Keep your motor and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain and a full flush, done just where the vehicle stands in Little Ickford, is usually all it needs when caught before the motor runs. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels around Draycot, as well as Little Ickford, carry on two fluids; the engine takes just your diesel. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the gas to clean it, from its own tank.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the arrangement on a lot of cars. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. Diesel gets filled on each forecourt visit, week in, week out. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less commonly. It is in that gap that the error lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Little Ickford: how it happens
It's rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the car, and letting it run dry means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Little Ickford, or outside The Rising Sun on the way home after work.
Next, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old car — since a hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip after it has started. Whether it happens in Ickford or the middle of Little Ickford, it's the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Tiddington or a forecourt in Little Ickford, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally do not.
- On plenty of cars, size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — many vehicles mark what belongs in which filler right there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler is if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The previous driver knows. Ask as you collect a hire car or company car — from Haddenham & Thame Parkway's car park, perhaps — rather than once the light appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
On the day the light comes on — anywhere you are around Buckinghamshire — a simple routine to follow.
- Not in a rush on the side of Sheldon Road, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park then switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Finish once your tank fills or the bottle is empty; before that, tip gently using its built-in spout.
- Shut the cap, then check again — confirm your diesel cap stayed closed throughout. Only then, start the vehicle.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Step five stays out.
Little Ickford: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Brief order, then. First: the motor remains unstarted. Don't switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel won't dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of your tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
At a forecourt — BP, Asda or any other — the attendants will normally help push the car clear, when you ask. If you are on your own drive around Little Ickford, leave the vehicle where it stands.
When your motor has run by now, pull over safely and turn the car off. The next junction is where to leave when you are on the Wheatley Spur, under 3 miles from Little Ickford. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Oxford, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Little Ickford.
When our engineers arrive around Little Ickford, what happens?
Outside Ickford School, close to Ickford Village Hall or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, we come to it. Those replies settle the work and our price, so our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. You hear that quote by phone, before anybody heads out.
After that: draining, then a thorough flush of the entire system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more here than with petrol. A test comes at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the filter is flushed or changed as needed. After that our technicians start it and check it runs properly before leaving.
If the motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Before we get there, have a look at your policy; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Little Ickford, for a moment
Little Ickford is a small hamlet situated on the banks of the River Thame in Buckinghamshire, with a low elevation of around 63 metres. Little Ickford lies near the villages of Ickford, Shabbington, and Worminghall, and is approximately 8.7 miles from Oxford. Little Ickford is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Little Ickford is also within commuting distance of London, being around 43.4 miles from the capital.
AdBlue drains around Little Ickford and across Buckinghamshire
Little Ickford is a rural hamlet, and the teams that cover it also work the places around it, Shabbington and Worminghall among them, across the HP postcode area. Give a postcode that starts HP18 9, and the van arrives quickest.
The vehicle stays where it is. Draining happens right there, be it a drive, a street by Saint Nicholas Church, or a lay-by towards Ickford Playing Field. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Saint Peter & Saint Paul? By a county line? Checking beats assuming, and so phone.
In short, for Little Ickford drivers
Read the cap before you tip. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Keep it switched off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, throughout Buckinghamshire.