Newnham Croft: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Around Newnham Croft, finding it before your motor runs usually means draining and a full flush on the spot. Nothing happened yet? Below, the page explains the why it occurs and the ways to prevent it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of current diesels on the roads about Newnham Croft and Grantchester carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your 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.
Each tank has its own filler. Many of vehicles have a single flap for the two, while others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens in Newnham Croft
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things lining up at once.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Derby Street before work, or in the car park at The Red Bull on the way home.
Unfamiliar motors are next, as well. Rentals, new motors and company motors put their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap it used on the old one.
Nothing stops the tip once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it takes place in Newnham or the middle of Newnham Croft, it's the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Trumpington or a forecourt around Newnham Croft, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally aren't.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Check for it.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Cambridge.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Cambridgeshire that is.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time to spare — never rushing on the side of Hardwick Street.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you have found the filler and read it.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Stop when your tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour slowly through the built-in spout.
- Shut the cap, then look once more — making sure your diesel cap stayed closed throughout. After that, start the car.
Spot at stage two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop right there. Never go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Newnham Croft already?
Short order, then. First: the motor stays off. On plenty of diesels the 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 your tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
Ask the staff to help push the car clear of the petrol pump if you're on a forecourt — the Shell, the Esso or anywhere else. At home around Newnham Croft? Then the car stays where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. The next exit is where to come off if you're on the M11, under 3 miles from Newnham Croft. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Cambridge, under a mile away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Newnham Croft.
When we turn up around Newnham Croft, what takes place?
Our van reaches the vehicle anywhere it has come to rest — your own drive, near St Mark's (Newnham Parish Church), or outside Newnham Croft Primary School. The replies settle this work and the price, and so our engineers ask what got in, about how much, and if it has run. That price is given on the call, before any van leaves.
Emptying your tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither clears out by itself. That is why it matters more. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Before leaving, our technicians fire it up and check that it is running smoothly.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after our engineers arrive, as long as your motor has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, take a look at your insurance documents; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Newnham Croft itself
Newnham Croft is a suburban area located on the outskirts of Cambridge, sitting alongside the River Cam and its associated lakes. Newnham Croft has a relatively low elevation of around 12 metres, and its proximity to Cambridge makes it a popular residential choice. Newnham Croft is characterized by its predominance of terraced housing, which reflects the area's history of development as a residential suburb.
AdBlue drains in Newnham Croft and across Cambridgeshire
Being a residential suburb, Newnham Croft has the same vans as surrounding areas — Cambridge, Newtown — right through CB postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Quote a postcode beginning CB3 9, and our van arrives fastest.
There's no need to shift your car. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Gonville & Caius College Sports Ground, a side street near Newnham Scout and Guide Centre: our engineers drain the car where it sits. Guessing doesn't help behind Cambridge Canoe Club, on a border, or anywhere hard to describe; ring and ask.
Newnham Croft people: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere around Cambridgeshire.