Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Long Sutton
Keep your engine and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Around Long Sutton, finding it before the engine turns normally leaves draining and a thorough flush where it stands. The remainder of this page explains why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't — useful if you're reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads around Long Sutton and Chapelgate carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. The exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the gas to fresh it, from its own tank.
Each tank has one filler of its own. Some vehicles put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot more place the two together under one flap. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less commonly, normally from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake grows in that gap between the two.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Long Sutton: how it occurs
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Bull Lane before work, or in the car park at The Crown & Woolpack on the way home.
The old car's cap is where the hand goes — yet a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That's the second factor: an unfamiliar car.
A spout-topped bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, once started, keeps on. It's a few seconds, be it out in Garnsgate or right in the heart of Long Sutton.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Little Sutton or a forecourt in Long Sutton.
- Check the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue ones are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally are not.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — many cars show what goes in which filler just there.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask as you pick up a hire car or company car — at Spalding's car park, say — not once the light appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Lincolnshire that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of High Street.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It seems daft. It works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, shut the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap was never came off.
Find at the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Don't go on to stage five.
Long Sutton: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting your engine. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the vehicle on. AdBlue doesn't 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.
At a forecourt — Gulf, BP or another — the attendants will normally help roll your car away, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Long Sutton.
Already run? Stop when it is sensible, then turn off. On the A1(M), under 50 miles from Long Sutton, that means the next exit. Mileage counts — a short hop across Long Sutton makes a smaller job than driving under 25 miles to Peterborough — so say roughly how far it went.
What happens when our technicians arrive around Long Sutton
Outside Long Sutton County Primary School, close to Long Sutton Market House or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, we come to it. Our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run, because those replies decide the work and our price. On the phone call itself, you hear our price — ahead of anything else.
Emptying your tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the system. More than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: the crystals form, certain metals are attacked, and nothing clears away on its own, no matter how long it sits. The filter flushed or, if needed, replaced; fresh diesel in; and then a test of your vehicle. The engine is started next and checked to be sure it runs properly, all before our technicians head off.
Unstarted cars mostly mean a half-hour job after the moment we arrive. The kit is safe on a busy filling station, and quiet enough for a residential street late at night. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both once the job is done. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Long Sutton and where it is
Long Sutton is a small town in south Lincolnshire, situated near the River Nene and close to the Cambridgeshire border. Long Sutton lies in a low-lying area of the Fens, with an elevation of around 8 metres, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Garnsgate and Lutton Gowts. Long Sutton has a population of approximately 5429 people, with a predominance of detached housing. Long Sutton is located about 21 miles from Peterborough and 89 miles from London.
AdBlue drains about Long Sutton, and Lincolnshire beyond
Throughout PE postcodes, the vans covering Long Sutton — a town — work the nearby locations too, Sutton Crosses and Lutton Gowts included. Fastest of all: give a PE12 9 postcode to our van.
The car does not need to move. Wherever it stands — near Long Sutton Market Place, on a layby heading to Long Sutton Cricket Ground, on a drive — that's where it gets cleared. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Saint Mary's Church, ring and ask instead of guessing.
Long Sutton drivers: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, throughout Lincolnshire.