Oundle: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Pause reading for a moment when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Oundle. The rest of this page covers why it takes place and how to make sure it does not — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Many newer diesels on the roads round Oundle and Cotterstock carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where spraying cleans the gas.
There's a filler for each tank. Plenty of motors share a single flap for both, while some move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at every forecourt visit, again and again. Much less frequently, the AdBlue side is topped up — normally from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. The mistake grows in that gap between the two.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur in Oundle?
Carelessness rarely causes it. Instead is three things coming up together.
Haste follows from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off New Street, or on the way home in the car park at The Rose And Crown.
The old car's filler is where your hand reaches — yet a hire car, a new motor or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That is the second thing: a strange car.
A spout-topped bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, once started, keeps on. It's a few seconds, be it in Ashton or bang in the centre of Oundle.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Oundle forecourt or a driveway over in Armston, spend a couple of seconds over these before any goes in.
- Position can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue ones are often blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally do not.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Look inside the fuel flap: many cars have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Ask 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 at Corby.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
On the day the light comes on — anywhere you are around Northamptonshire — a routine to use.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Market Place.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, perhaps, but it works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two share a flap, confirm it's shut before the bottle comes up.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then look again — making sure your diesel filler stayed closed throughout. After that, start the car.
Find during the second or third step that the bottle went into the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Don't carry on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Oundle?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your engine. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the car on. Diluting it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the base rather than mixing — and that's where the fuel is pulled from.
Ask the attendants to help roll the car clear of the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Esso, the another forecourt nearby or anywhere else. If you are on your own drive around Oundle, leave it where it sits.
When your motor has run already, pull over safely and turn the vehicle off. On the A1(M), under 10 miles from Oundle, that means the next junction. A short hop across Oundle is a smaller job than a run towards Peterborough, under 15 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
When we arrive in Oundle, what happens?
Our technicians come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Oundle Church of England Primary School, near Queen Victoria Hall or on your own driveway. We ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run, since those replies settle the work and our price. You hear that price on the phone, before anyone heads out.
Emptying the tank comes next, followed by a full flush of your system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Before we leave, our engineers fire it up and check that it's running smoothly.
Unrun cars mostly need a half-hour visit after arrival. The kit is fine on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. No money upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Before we get there, have a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Oundle
Oundle is a small town in Northamptonshire, situated on the banks of the River Nene at an elevation of around 37 metres. Oundle lies near the villages of Ashton, Elmington, and Stoke Doyle, and is approximately 11 miles from Peterborough. Oundle has a population of around 6252 people, predominantly living in detached housing. Oundle is also within commuting distance of London, being around 69 miles from the capital.
Oundle and Northamptonshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Elmington and Stoke Doyle are among the towns around Oundle, a riverside town, that the same teams cover, throughout PE postcodes. Quote a postcode beginning PE8 4, and the van gets there quickest.
The vehicle stays put. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Oundle Town Football Club, a side street close to The Cripps Library: our technicians drain it where it is. Guessing doesn't help behind Oundle Methodist Church, close to a border, or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and check.
The short version for Oundle people
Pour nothing till you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it waits, anywhere in Northamptonshire.