Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Orston
Pause here a minute when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Around Orston, catching it before your motor turns normally leaves draining and a full flush where it stands. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
No single liquid but two: that is how many newer diesels near Orston and Alverton run, with diesel for your engine. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the gas to fresh it, from a separate tank.
Each tank comes with a filler of its own. Other motors put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have both together behind one flap. At the petrol pump, the diesel side gets filled all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less regularly, normally from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. The error lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens around Orston
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Mill Lane before work, or in the car park at Durham Ox on the way home.
Then your car is new. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand reaches 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. So the pour, once started, keeps on. Thoroton or the middle of Orston: it is the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Whatton-in-the-Vale or a forecourt in Orston, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Many cars fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler is if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Elton & Orston, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
The day the light goes on, anywhere around Nottinghamshire, use this routine.
- Turn off after you park — flat ground, engine off, and never in a rush beside Loughbon on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It seems silly. It works.
- The two under one flap? So confirm the cap on your diesel side stays closed ahead of raising the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't carry on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Orston?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your engine. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the car on. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
The staff at Esso, Essar or any forecourt will normally help pushing the vehicle clear if asked. If you are on your own driveway in Orston, leave the car where it sits.
Where your motor has been run by now, pull over safely and switch the vehicle off. Orston sits under 25 miles from the M1; there, take the next exit. A short hop across Orston is a smaller job than a run towards Nottingham, under 15 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our engineers get there around Orston, what occurs?
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Orston Primary School, close to Orston Village Hall or on your own driveway. Which fluid went in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our technicians ask since those replies set both work and price. During the call itself, you are told the quote — ahead of dispatch.
Then that tank is drained and the system rinsed thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. The filter flushed or, if needed, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a check of the vehicle. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running properly.
Unstarted cars mostly need a half-hour job after the moment we arrive. The kit is fine on a live filling station, and hushed enough for a driveway after dark. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once the job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Orston, briefly
Orston is a small village in the East Midlands, situated on the riverside in Nottinghamshire, with a low elevation of around 25 metres. Orston lies near several other villages, including Thoroton, Flawborough, and Elton on the Hill, and is approximately 12 miles from Nottingham. Orston has a population of around 515 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Orston is also relatively distant from London, at around 105 miles away.
AdBlue drains around Orston, and Nottinghamshire beyond
Orston is a village, and our teams that cover it also work the towns near it, Flawborough and Elton on the Hill among them, across the NG postcode area. Quote a postcode beginning NG13 9, and the van arrives quickest.
The vehicle stays put. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to The Rookery, a side street close to St Mary's Church: our technicians drain the vehicle where it sits. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Orston Methodist Chapel? By a border? Checking is better than guessing, and so ring.
Orston people: the short version
First, the cap; after that, the pour. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it wherever it is, wherever across Nottinghamshire: keep the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103.