North End: 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 motor and your ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. Around North End, finding it before the motor turns normally means draining and a thorough flush where it stands. Here before the event? In that case what follows covers how it comes about and what to prevent it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads around North End and Drayton Parslow carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler for each tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the layout on many motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think what cap it needs. It's in that gap that the mistake lives.
North End: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
On a driveway off High Street North before work, or in the car park outside The Swan on the way home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle tells you, and once it is gone, limp mode follows.
Then the vehicle is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, after started, keeps on. Whether it happens in Stewkley or the middle of North End, it's the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Hollingdon or a forecourt in North End, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally do not.
- Many motors give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- Cannot find it next to your diesel filler? Then look below the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook says 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 Leighton Buzzard.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
On the day the warning appears — anywhere you are across Buckinghamshire — a simple routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of Stockhall Crescent, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park then switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the vehicle on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Don't go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in North End?
The short order of things, starting with not starting the motor. Leave the ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels it alone runs your pump. Filling up with diesel will not weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of that tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Texaco, Tesco or another forecourt will normally help to push the vehicle away when asked. Your own driveway in North End is the place it should stay.
Already run? Stop once it is sensible, then switch off. North End lies under 10 miles from the M1; on it, use the next exit. About how far did it go? Hopping across North End is less work than a trip of under 10 miles towards Milton Keynes, and so say.
When our technicians get there around North End, what occurs?
Anywhere the car has stopped, whether outside St Michael's Church of England Combined School, near Stewkley Village Hall or at home, the van comes to it. Our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and if it's run, since the answers determine this work and the quote. Nobody sets off before you have had the price by phone.
Then that tank is cleared and your system purged thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters 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. Testing comes at the end: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is cleaned or replaced as needed. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
Unstarted cars usually need a half-hour job after the moment we arrive. The kit is safe on a busy filling station, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. No money in advance; you settle up on the day. At the end, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. It's worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About North End and where it is
North End is a suburban area in Buckinghamshire, situated approximately 7.6 miles from Milton Keynes and 40.3 miles northwest of London. North End sits in a rural setting at an elevation of around 149 metres, with nearby villages including Stewkley and Stewkley Dean. North End is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its development as a residential area. North End remains a small community with a population of around 696 residents.
AdBlue drains across Buckinghamshire, North End included
Being a residential suburb, North End shares its vans nearby places — Stewkley Dean, South End — all the way through LU postcodes and the surrounding area around them. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting LU7 0.
Your car doesn't need to move. Anywhere it stands — near St Michael and All Angels, in a layby heading to Stewkley Recreation Ground, on a drive — that's where it is cleared. Tricky to explain, like the back of High Street Methodist Church? Close to a border? Asking beats assuming, and so phone.
North End people: the short version
Tip nothing till you have read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it wherever it is, anywhere in Buckinghamshire: keep the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103.