Natland: 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 your engine and your ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Natland. Reading before the event? Then the rest explains how it comes about and what to prevent it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Not one liquid but two: that's how many newer diesels around Natland and Heron Hill carry, with diesel feeding the motor. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has a filler of its own. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. It is in that gap that the slip lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens around Natland
Carelessness seldom causes it. What does is three things lining up together.
Haste follows from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off Oxenholme Lane, or on the way home in the car park outside The Punch Bowl.
The old car's filler is where your hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That's a second thing: a strange vehicle.
A spout-topped bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, after started, keeps on. It's seconds, whether in Barrows Green or right in the heart of Natland.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Crosscrake or a forecourt around Natland, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally do not.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check when you pick up a rental or company car — at Oxenholme Lake District's car park, say — not once the warning appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
Wherever across Cumbria the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Natland Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Step five stays out.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Natland?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the engine. Do not switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, since AdBlue settles to the bottom instead of blending — and that's where the fuel is sucked from.
The staff at Texaco, BP or another forecourt will usually lend a hand pushing your car clear when you ask. At home around Natland? So your car remains put.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next junction means where to come off when you're on the M6, under 3 miles from Natland. A short hop across Natland is a smaller job than a run towards Lancaster, under 25 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
What occurs when our technicians turn up around Natland
By St Mark's CofE Primary School, close to Natland Village Hall or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, we come to it. The answers settle the work and the quote, and so our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it has run. No one heads out before you've had our quote over the phone.
Draining your tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and none of it clears away unaided. Hence it matters more. The filter cleaned or, if needed, swapped; fresh diesel in; and then a test of the car. We do not go until it has been started and is running properly.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after our engineers arrive, provided your motor has not run — and the pumps we use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It's worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Natland
Natland is a small village in Cumbria, situated inland at an elevation of around 60 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Natland lies near the villages of Barrows Green, Prizet, and Oxenholme, and is approximately 17 miles from Lancaster. Natland has a population of around 533 residents, who live in a rural setting. Natland is located about 221 miles from London, in the North West region of England.
AdBlue drains across Cumbria, Natland included
Natland is a rural village, and our teams that cover it also work the places near it, Prizet and Oxenholme among them, across the LA postcode area. Give a postcode that starts LA9 7, and our van arrives quickest.
There's no need to shift the vehicle. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Hawes Wood, a side street near St Mark’s Church: our engineers drain it where it is. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of The Helm, ring and ask instead of guessing.
In short, for Natland motorists
Pour no AdBlue till you've read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it is, anywhere in Cumbria: switch the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103.