AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Northstowe: How It Occurs and How to Prevent It
Stop reading a minute when the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Northstowe. Here before the event? Then the rest explains how it comes about and how to stop it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds the motor — yet many newer diesels seen round Northstowe and Willingham hold a second fluid too. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust gas to clean it.
There's a filler for each tank. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is topped up at the petrol pump all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think which cap to use. It's in the gap that the mistake lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Northstowe: how it takes place
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things coming up together.
Haste follows from the warning. The vehicle warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a driveway off Villa Road, or heading home in the car park at The Black Bull.
Unfamiliar motors come next, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, once started, carries on. Whether it happens in Longstanton or the middle of Northstowe, it's the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt in Northstowe or a driveway out in Oakington. Seconds, that's all.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many motors carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- Can't find it beside your diesel inlet? Then look beneath the bonnet or inside the boot — the handbook says where.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Cambridge North.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
The day the light goes on, wherever in Cambridgeshire, use this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Temple Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, yet it works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Stop once your tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; before that, pour slowly through the own spout.
- Before starting the vehicle, close the cap and check again that the diesel cap was never opened off.
Find at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop right there. Leave out stage five entirely.
Northstowe: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Don't start your engine: that's where the short order of things begins. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — so leave it off. Topping up with diesel will not weaken it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of the tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help push the vehicle clear of the pump if you are at a forecourt — the Rampton Motors, the Tesco or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive around Northstowe.
When the engine has run by now, stop safely then turn the car off. Northstowe lies under 5 miles from the M11; there, use the next exit. A short hop across Northstowe is a smaller job than a run towards Cambridge, under 10 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival around Northstowe, and what takes place next
Our van reaches the vehicle wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside Unity Centre, or by Pathfinder CofE Primary School. We ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it's run, because those answers determine the work and our quote. That quote is given on the call, before any van leaves.
Emptying that tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the fuel system. 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 last: before that, clean diesel is added, and your filter is cleaned or changed if necessary. We don't leave until it has been started and is running properly.
With pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor has not run take about half an hour once we are there. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. While we travel, take a look at your insurance documents; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Northstowe itself
Northstowe is a locality in Cambridgeshire, situated near the lakes and low-lying areas of the Eastern region. Northstowe sits at an elevation of around 12 metres, close to the cities of Cambridge and the nearby villages of Longstanton and Rampton. Northstowe has a mix of housing types, with semi-detached homes being predominant in the area. Northstowe is located approximately 6.3 miles from Cambridge and 54.4 miles from London.
AdBlue drains in Northstowe and across Cambridgeshire
Rampton and Westwick are among the towns near Northstowe, a small village, that the same vans cover, over CB postcodes. A postcode starting CB24 1 gets the van to you fastest.
The car remains where it is. The drain takes place on the spot, be it a driveway, a road near Unity Lake Sign, or a lay-by on the way to Pioneer Park. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Longstanton.
The short version for Northstowe motorists
Pour nothing until you've read the cap. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it stands, wherever around Cambridgeshire: keep it off and call 0333 366 0103.