How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Ravenshead
Stop reading a minute if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. In Ravenshead, catching it before your engine turns normally leaves draining and a thorough flush where it stands. Not happened yet? Below, the rest of the page covers the reasons it occurs and the ways to prevent it for good.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
No single fluid but two: that's what many modern diesels around Ravenshead and Blidworth carry, with diesel for your motor. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank has a filler of its own. Some motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have the two together under one flap. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less frequently, usually from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Ravenshead
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a drive off Vernon Crescent before work, or in the car park at The Hutt heading home: that's where the rushed top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and once it's empty, limp mode follows.
New-to-you cars are second, as well. Rentals, new motors and company cars place their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap it used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after started, carries on. Whether it takes place in Blidworth Dale or the middle of Ravenshead, it's the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Whether a Ravenshead forecourt or a driveway out in Papplewick, take a couple of seconds over these before anything goes in.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the flap and look for a label — many motors mark which goes in each inlet just there.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver will know. Ask as you collect a hire car or fleet car — from Newstead's car park, perhaps — rather than once the warning appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — wherever you are around Nottinghamshire — a routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of Milton Crescent, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off first.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — once you've located your filler and read it.
- Both under a single flap? So make sure the lid on your diesel side is still shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Never go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Ravenshead?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the motor. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment your ignition goes on — so keep it off. Thinning it with more diesel won't work, because AdBlue settles to the base instead of mixing — and that's where the fuel is pulled from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the Esso or the BP, ask the staff to help roll the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. Your own drive around Ravenshead is the place it should stay.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next junction is where to come off when you are on the M1, under 5 miles from Ravenshead. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Ravenshead is a smaller job than driving under 10 miles towards Nottingham — so say roughly how far it went.
When we get there around Ravenshead, what takes place?
The van comes to the car wherever it stopped — your own driveway, beside Ravenshead Library, or outside Abbey Gates Primary School. Our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and whether it's run, since the replies determine this work and our price. On the call itself, you hear the price — ahead of dispatch.
Your system is then cleaned thoroughly, once the tank is drained. Much more than with petrol, it counts here: the crystals form, some metals corrode, and nothing clears away on its own, no matter how long it sits. Testing comes at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the filter is flushed or replaced as needed. Your engine is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs correctly, all before our technicians head off.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour once our engineers arrive, provided your engine hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a live forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork your insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Ravenshead, briefly
Ravenshead is a village in Nottinghamshire, situated in the East Midlands region of England, approximately 8.9 miles north of Nottingham. Ravenshead sits at an elevation of 151 metres, surrounded by nearby places such as Blidworth Dale, Harlow Wood, and Blidworth Bottoms. Ravenshead has a population of around 1782 people, predominantly living in detached housing.
AdBlue drains about Ravenshead, and Nottinghamshire beyond
Harlow Wood and Blidworth Bottoms are among the towns near Ravenshead, a rural village, that the same vans cover, over NG postcodes. A postcode starting NG15 9 gets our van to you fastest.
The car doesn't need to shift. Wherever it stands — near Ravenshead Village Hall, in a lay-by en route to The Martin Roe Woodland, on a drive — that is where it gets emptied. Awkward to explain, like the back of St Peter's Church Ravenshead? Close to a county line? Checking is better than assuming, and so ring.
For Ravenshead drivers, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave the car off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it waits, anywhere around Nottinghamshire.