AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Lynch Wood: Why It Occurs and How to Stop It
Keep your motor and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain plus a thorough flush, done right where the vehicle stands around Lynch Wood, is normally what it needs when caught before the motor runs. Reading before the event? Then what follows covers how it happens and how to stop it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels in Orton Brimbles, like those in Lynch Wood, run on two liquids; the motor gets only your diesel. 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. Plenty of vehicles share a single flap for the two, whereas others move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled constantly. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. It's in the gap that the mistake happens.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place in Lynch Wood
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from your car, and running dry leads to limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Commerce Road, or outside The Cuckoo on the way home that evening.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
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 pour after it has started. Whether it happens in Orton Northgate or the middle of Lynch Wood, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Be it a Lynch Wood forecourt or a driveway out in Orton Southgate, take a few seconds over these before anything goes in.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- The size. On plenty of motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of cars say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Peterborough.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Cambridgeshire that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Innovation Way.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you have located the filler and read the cap.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the car on.
- Stop once that tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; until then, tip slowly through the own spout.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Find during the second or third stage that the bottle went into the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Don't carry on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Lynch Wood already?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting your motor. Leave the ignition off as well, because on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself starts your pump. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of that tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Welcome Break, The Co-operative or any forecourt will normally help pushing the vehicle clear when asked. If you're on your own drive in Lynch Wood, leave it where it is.
Where the motor has run already, pull over somewhere safe and switch it off. The next exit is where to come off when you're on the Great North Road, under 3 miles from Lynch Wood. About how far did it go? Crossing Lynch Wood is less a job than a trip of under 5 miles to Peterborough, and so say.
What happens when our technicians turn up around Lynch Wood
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Orton Wistow Primary School, close to Alwalton Manor or on your own driveway. Our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it's run, since the answers decide the work and the price. Nobody heads out before you've had our quote by phone.
Your system is then flushed thoroughly, after your tank is emptied. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. The filter flushed or, if needed, swapped; fresh diesel in; then a check of your vehicle. Then our engineers fire it up and make sure it runs correctly before we go.
If your motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Lynch Wood itself
Lynch Wood is a suburban area situated on the outskirts of Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, with its riverside setting providing scenic views. Lynch Wood sits at a low elevation of around 22 metres, close to the River Nene and near the villages of Orton Northgate and Orton Wistow. Lynch Wood is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its development as a residential area. Lynch Wood is located approximately 3.6 miles from Peterborough city centre, making it a convenient base for commuters.
AdBlue drains about Lynch Wood, and Cambridgeshire beyond
Being a residential suburb, Lynch Wood has the same vans as nearby areas — Orton Wistow, Alwalton — all the way across PE postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Quote a postcode beginning PE2 6, and the van gets there fastest.
Shifting the vehicle is not necessary. A drive, a lay-by on the way to East of England Showground, a side street near Colonel Dane Memorial Hall: our engineers drain the car where it stands. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Saint Andrew (Alwalton Parish Church)? Close to a county line? Asking is better than guessing, and so ring.
The short version for Lynch Wood motorists
Always, the cap; then, the pour. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it is, wherever across Cambridgeshire: switch the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103.