Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Middle End: Why It Happens
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then put this page aside for now, keep the ignition and motor off, then ring 0333 366 0103. In Middle End, catching it before your motor runs usually leaves a drain and a full flush where it stands. Not happened yet? Further down, the page explains the reasons it occurs and the how to avoid it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Many newer diesels on the roads about Middle End and Eaton Bray carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler for each tank. Plenty of cars share a single flap for both, whereas others move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Topping up your diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. 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. The mistake lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur around Middle End?
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
On a drive off Brownlow Rise before work, or in the car park outside The Cross Keys on the way home: that is where the rushed top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car tells you, and if it's gone, limp mode kicks in.
Unfamiliar motors come next, too. Hire cars, new motors and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and the hand goes for the cap it 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 tip once it has started. Whether it takes place in Lower End or the middle of Middle End, it is the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Church End or a forecourt around Middle End, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it instead of going by position.
- On plenty of motors, size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Cannot find it next to the diesel filler? Then check below the bonnet or in your boot — the owner's manual says which.
- The previous driver knows. Check when you collect a hire car or company car — from Cheddington's car park, say — not when the warning comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Bedfordshire that is.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Chapel Lane.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" out loud while unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Stop when the tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour slowly using the built-in spout.
- Shut the cap, and look again — making sure your diesel filler remained closed throughout. After that, start the vehicle.
Discover at the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Do not go on to step five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Middle End?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with no starting the engine. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition goes on — and so keep it off. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
The attendants at BP, Esso or any forecourt will normally lend a hand to push your car clear when asked. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Middle End.
Already run? Pull over once it is sensible, then switch off. Leave the M1 — under 5 miles out of Middle End — at the first exit. About how far did it go? Hopping across Middle End is less a job than a trip of under 15 miles to Milton Keynes, so say.
What happens when we get there in Middle End
The van comes to your car wherever it stopped — your own drive, near Totternhoe Castle, or outside Eaton Bray Academy. Our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, because the answers determine the work and our quote. Nobody heads out until you have had our price over the phone.
Draining the tank comes next, then a full flush of your system. 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 does not wash out on its own. Testing comes last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and your filter is cleaned or changed if necessary. Before we leave, our technicians fire it up and check that it is running smoothly.
If the engine hasn't run, the majority of 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 at night. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, have a look at your insurance documents; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Middle End
Middle End is a small suburban area in Bedfordshire, situated inland at an elevation of 117 metres. Middle End lies approximately 32.5 miles north of London and 13.2 miles southeast of Milton Keynes, near the villages of Lower End and Totternhoe. Middle End is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its development as a residential area. Middle End remains a quiet community with a population of around 533 residents.
AdBlue drains round Middle End, and Bedfordshire beyond
Throughout LU postcodes, our teams that cover Middle End — a residential suburb — work the surrounding locations too, Totternhoe and Honeywick included. A postcode starting LU6 2 gets our van to you fastest.
The vehicle remains where it is. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Totternhoe Knolls, a side street close to Totternhoe Knolls: our engineers drain the car where it is. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Totternhoe Memorial Hall, ring and ask rather than guessing.
For Middle End motorists, the short version
Tip nothing till you have read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, across Bedfordshire.