Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Penn: Why It Occurs
Pause reading a minute when the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, carried out right where the car sits around Penn, is usually what it takes when caught before your motor runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
No single liquid but two: that is what plenty of modern diesels around Penn and Penn Bottom run, with diesel feeding your motor. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, where spraying cleans the fumes.
There's a filler for each tank. Other motors put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place both together behind one flap. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually goes in out of a bottle, poured by a driver who has to stop and think which cap to use. It's in that gap that the slip happens.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens around Penn
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the car, and letting it run out means limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Church Road, perhaps at Old Queens Head on the way home after work.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in just as easily, and once the tip begins, nothing halts it. Tylers Green or the heart of Penn: it takes the same few seconds either way.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Wycombe Marsh or a forecourt in Penn, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Plenty of cars give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Check for it.
- Can't see it beside your diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or inside the boot — the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park outside High Wycombe? Ask whoever drove the car last before leaving, not once the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
When the light comes on, anywhere in Buckinghamshire, use this routine.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time to spare — not rushing on the side of Hammersley Lane.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — once you've found your filler and read it.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two share a flap, make sure it's closed before lifting the bottle.
- Stop once your tank fills or the bottle runs dry; before that, pour gently using its own spout.
- Before you start the vehicle, close the cap and check a second time that your diesel cap was never came off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Never carry on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Penn already?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting your engine. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel won't thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of that tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
The attendants at JET, Shell or any forecourt will usually help to push your car away when you ask. At home around Penn? So the vehicle remains put.
Already started? Stop when it's safe, then turn off. Penn sits under 3 miles from the M40; there, take the first junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards St Albans, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Penn.
Penn: what occurs when our technicians turn up
The van comes to the vehicle wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, near St Margaret's, or outside Tylers Green First School. We ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, since those answers decide this work and our price. You hear that price by phone, before anyone sets off.
Next: draining, then a full flush of the entire system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of it clears out by itself. Hence it matters more. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. After that our technicians start the car and check it runs correctly before we go.
Unstarted cars mostly mean a half-hour visit after arrival. The kit is fine on a live forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork your insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Penn
Penn is a village in Buckinghamshire, situated in the Chiltern Hills at an elevation of 163 metres. Penn lies approximately 25.9 miles west of London and 17.3 miles southwest of St Albans, near the villages of Tylers Green, Micklefield, and Hazlemere. Penn has a population of around 1773 residents, predominantly living in detached houses.
AdBlue drains across Buckinghamshire, Penn included
Throughout HP postcodes, our teams that cover Penn — a rural village — work the nearby locations too, Hazlemere and Micklefield included. Fastest of all: give a HP10 8 postcode to the van.
The car remains where it is. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Pugh's Wood, a side street near Tylers Green Village Hall: our technicians drain it where it stands. Awkward to pin down, like the back of The Methodist Church? By a county line? Checking beats guessing, and so ring.
For Penn drivers, the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Leave the car switched off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, throughout Buckinghamshire.