Orton Southgate: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Pause here a minute when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. Usually, when the motor has not turned, it is emptied and thoroughly cleaned where the car sits around Orton Southgate. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest 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
Many modern diesels in Lynch Wood, like those in Orton Southgate, run on two liquids; the engine takes only your diesel. 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. On a lot of vehicles 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 topped up at the petrol pump all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally goes in out of a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think which filler to use. It's in the gap that the mistake happens.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place around Orton Southgate
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
Hurry comes from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off Bakewell Road, or heading home in the car park at The Windmill Bar And Restaurant.
Unfamiliar cars are second, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company vehicles put their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
Nothing halts the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's a few seconds, whether in Orton Brimbles or right in the heart of Orton Southgate.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Whether a Orton Southgate forecourt or a driveway over in Orton Wistow, spend a couple of seconds over these before anything is poured in.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Many vehicles give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- Can't see it next to your diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or in the boot — the owner's manual will say where.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Peterborough, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Wherever around Cambridgeshire the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Tresham Road, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. When the two sit under a flap, confirm it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Finish when that tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip slowly through its own spout.
- Before you start the vehicle, shut the cap and check a second time that your diesel cap never came off.
Discover at the second or third step that the bottle went in the diesel filler? That is where you stop. Don't go on to stage five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Orton Southgate?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the motor. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch it on. Filling up with diesel will not weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the bottom of your tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it is the The Co-operative or the Shell, ask the attendants to help roll the car clear of the petrol pump. If you are on your own drive in Orton Southgate, leave the vehicle where it is.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Come off the A1(M) — under a mile out of Orton Southgate — at the next exit. Distance matters — a short hop across Orton Southgate is a smaller job than heading under 5 miles to Peterborough — so say about how far it went.
Our arrival in Orton Southgate, and what takes place next
Outside St John's Church School, close to Christ Church or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, we come to it. Which fluid was put in, the quantity, and whether it ran: we ask because the answers decide the work and price. You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off.
Next: draining, then a full flush of the entire 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. After your filter is flushed — or renewed, where needed — clean diesel is added, and then the car is tested. Your engine is fired up next and tested to be sure it runs properly, all before we go.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor has not run take about half an hour after our technicians arrive. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork your insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Orton Southgate itself
Orton Southgate is a suburban area located near Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, sitting at an elevation of around 24 metres in the eastern part of England. Orton Southgate forms part of the larger Orton estate, which includes nearby Orton Brimbles, Orton Goldhay, and Orton Northgate. Orton Southgate is characterised by its predominantly terraced housing and is approximately 3.5 miles from Peterborough city centre. Orton Southgate is also within commuting distance of London, being around 71.9 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Cambridgeshire, Orton Southgate included
As a residential suburb, Orton Southgate shares its vans nearby places — Orton Goldhay, Orton Northgate — right across PE postcodes and the wider area around them. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting PE2 6.
Shifting your car is not needed. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Ortongate Shopping Centre, a lay-by on the way to East of England Showground, a drive. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of QD.
Orton Southgate motorists: the short version
Pour nothing until you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave it off then phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it waits, anywhere around Cambridgeshire.