Swanpool: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Stop reading a minute if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then call 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Swanpool. Here in advance? In that case the rest covers why it happens and what to prevent it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Diesel feeds the engine — yet plenty of current diesels driven round Swanpool and Swallow Beck hold a second liquid too. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the fumes to clean it, from a separate tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on a lot of motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Diesel goes in on each filling station visit, again and again. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. Mistakes happen in that gap between them.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur in Swanpool?
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
Haste comes from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off Cherry Grove, or on the way home in the car park at Crown & Arrows.
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 your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Lastly, the bottle fits: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in as easily, and once the pour starts, no part stops it. Whether it takes place in Hartsholme or the middle of Swanpool, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Check these first, at a forecourt around Swanpool or a driveway over in Birchwood. A few seconds, no more.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it rather than going by position.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver knows. Ask when you collect a rental or fleet car — at Hykeham's car park, say — rather than when the light appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
Wherever across Lincolnshire the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Almond Court.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, make sure it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at stage two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop right there. Do not go on to stage five.
Swanpool: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Don't start the motor: that is where the short order of things starts. Leave the ignition off too, since on many diesels it alone starts your fuel pump. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, right where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help push the vehicle clear of the pump if you're on a forecourt — the Sainsbury's, the Shell or anywhere else. On your own drive around Swanpool? So the car remains put.
Already run? Stop once it is safe, then turn off. Swanpool sits under 25 miles from the M180; there, take the first exit. About how far did it go? Crossing Swanpool is less work than a trip of under 3 miles towards Lincoln, and so tell us.
When our engineers arrive around Swanpool, what occurs?
Anywhere the car has stopped, be it outside Hartsholme Academy, near Holy Cross Church or on your own drive, the van comes to it. The replies settle the work and our quote, and so our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run. That quote is given on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Draining the tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the fuel system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more here than with petrol. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Before we go, our technicians fire it up and make sure that it is running correctly.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor has not run need about half an hour after our technicians arrive. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Swanpool, for a moment
Swanpool is a suburban area situated on the outskirts of Lincoln, overlooking the lakes and countryside of the surrounding region. Swanpool sits at a low elevation of around 15 metres, with its lakeside setting providing a distinctive character to the neighbourhood. Swanpool is located close to other residential areas, including Hartsholme and Boultham, and is home to a population of approximately 2456 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing.
Swanpool and Lincolnshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Swanpool is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the places near it, Boultham Moor and Boultham among them, across the LN postcode area. Quote a postcode that starts LN6 0, and our van arrives quickest.
The car remains put. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Pheasantry, a side street near Starmers Pits: our engineers drain the car where it sits. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Moorland Park Methodist Church? By a border? Asking is better than guessing, and so ring.
Swanpool motorists: the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it waits, anywhere in Lincolnshire.