Orwell: 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 the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Normally, when the motor has not run, it is drained and fully rinsed where your car is around Orwell. Not happened yet? Below, the rest of the page explains the why it occurs and the how to avoid it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels in Great Eversden, as well as Orwell, carry on two fluids; the motor takes only your diesel. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to fresh it, from a separate tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Other vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place the two side by side behind one flap. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less often, usually from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Orwell: how it takes place
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
Haste comes from the warning. The vehicle tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off Town Green Road, or on the way home in the car park at The Chequers.
Then your car is new. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once started, carries on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Orwell or out in Wimpole.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A few seconds is all these take — so check them before you pour anything, on a drive in Harlton or a forecourt around Orwell.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Many vehicles fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — plenty of vehicles mark what goes in which inlet just there.
- The handbook shows where it is if the filler is not next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Shepreth, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
Wherever across Cambridgeshire the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Fisher's Lane, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park and switch off first.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud while unscrewing it. It seems daft. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at step two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop right there. Skip stage five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Orwell?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — so keep it off. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
Ask the attendants to help push the vehicle away from the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Wilshers Garage, the BP or anywhere else. At home around Orwell? Then the car remains put.
Where the engine has run by now, pull over somewhere safe then switch it off. The next junction is the place to come off if you're on the M11, under 5 miles from Orwell. About how far did it go? Hopping across Orwell is less work than a trip of under 10 miles towards Cambridge, so tell us.
What takes place when our technicians arrive in Orwell
By Petersfield CofE Aided Primary School, close to Orwell Village Sign or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Both the work and our quote depend on three answers — what fluid, what quantity, and if it's run — so we ask. No one heads out before you've heard our quote by phone.
After that: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither clears out unaided. Hence it matters more. Filter cleaned or, if it must be, replaced; fresh diesel in; then a test of your vehicle. We don't go until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after our engineers arrive, as long as the motor hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet after dark beside a house. Nothing in advance; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. It is worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Orwell
Orwell is a small village in Cambridgeshire, situated approximately 7 miles south of Cambridge and 44 miles north of London. Orwell sits in a low-lying area at an elevation of around 35 metres, surrounded by rolling countryside and nearby villages such as Wimpole and Little Eversden. Orwell has a population of around 810 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
Orwell and Cambridgeshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Old Wimpole and Little Eversden are among the places around Orwell, a rural village, that the same vans cover, throughout SG postcodes. Give a postcode beginning SG8 5, and our van gets there fastest.
No need to shift the vehicle. The drain takes place on the spot, whether a drive, a road by St Andrew, or a lay-by on the way to Orwell Clunch Pit. Assuming doesn't help at the back of Orwell Methodist Church, close to a border, or somewhere hard to pin down; ring and ask.
In short, for Orwell drivers
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it waits, anywhere across Cambridgeshire.