Sudbrooke: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Stop here for a moment if the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, done just where your vehicle stands in Sudbrooke, is usually what it needs if caught before your motor runs. Reading before the event? In that case what follows explains why it comes about and how to prevent it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Not one liquid but two: that is how many newer diesels near Sudbrooke and Nettleham run, with diesel for your engine. The exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the gas to clean them, from a separate tank.
Each tank comes with a filler of its own. Plenty of vehicles share a single flap for the two, whereas others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Topping up your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. That gap is where the mistake lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Sudbrooke: how it happens
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
On a driveway off West Drive before work, or in the car park at Bottle & Glass on the way home: that's where the hurried top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car tells you, and once it's gone, limp mode kicks in.
Unfamiliar vehicles come next, too. Hire cars, new cars and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and habit goes for the cap it used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip once it has started. It's seconds, be it out in Sudbrooke Park or right in the centre of Sudbrooke.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these before pouring, at a forecourt in Sudbrooke or a driveway out in Langworth. Seconds, that's all.
- 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.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- Open the filler flap and look for a label — many motors show which goes in which filler just there.
- The handbook shows which it lives if the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Lincoln Central? Ask the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, not when the light goes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
The day the light goes on, wherever around Lincolnshire, follow this routine.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, motor off, and not rushed by Scothern Lane at the roadside.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — once you have located your filler and read the cap.
- The two under a single flap? Then confirm the cap on the diesel side is still closed ahead of raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Step five stays out.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Sudbrooke?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with no starting the motor. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the vehicle on. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
The attendants at UK, Lincoln Kiln Dried Logs or any forecourt will usually help to push your car clear when you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Sudbrooke.
Where the motor has been run already, stop somewhere safe then switch it off. On the M180, under 25 miles from Sudbrooke, that means the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Sudbrooke is less a job than a trip of under 5 miles to Lincoln, so tell us.
What occurs when our technicians get there around Sudbrooke
Anywhere the vehicle came to rest, whether by Ellison Boulters Church of England Primary School, near Saint Edward the Confessor or on your own drive, the van comes to it. Which fluid got in, the quantity, and if it ran: our engineers ask because the replies set the work and quote. That price is given on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Emptying the tank comes next, then a full flush of the fuel system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. Filter flushed or, if needed, swapped; fresh diesel in; and then a test of your vehicle. 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 equipment is safe on a busy filling station, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. No money in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Sudbrooke itself
Sudbrooke is a small village in Lincolnshire, situated near the River Witham and close to the city of Lincoln. Sudbrooke sits at a low elevation of around 20 metres, with Sudbrooke Park nearby offering open spaces. Sudbrooke has a mix of old and new housing, with detached homes being the predominant type, and is located near other villages such as Scothern and Reepham.
AdBlue drains in Sudbrooke and across Lincolnshire
Throughout LN postcodes, our vans that cover Sudbrooke — a village — work the surrounding locations too, Reepham and Scothern among them. Fastest of all: give a LN2 2 postcode to our van.
There's no need to move the car. Draining takes place right there, be it a driveway, a road by St Germain, or a lay-by towards Grange Park. Awkward to pin down, like the back of LiteHouse Community Centre? By a county line? Asking is better than guessing, and so phone.
For Sudbrooke motorists, the short version
First, the cap; then, the tip. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere across Lincolnshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — so leave the car off then ring 0333 366 0103.