Swinderby: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Keep your engine and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Normally, when your motor has not run, it's drained and thoroughly flushed where your car is in Swinderby. Reading in advance? Then the rest covers why it comes about and how to prevent it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads around Swinderby and Redmay Corner carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the gas to clean it, from its own tank.
There's a filler on every tank. Other vehicles put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot more place both side by side behind one flap. At the pump, your diesel side gets filled constantly. The AdBlue side is filled far less often, usually from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. The error lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place around Swinderby
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things coming up together.
On a driveway off Moor Lane before work, or in the car park outside Plough heading home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and once it is gone, limp mode kicks in.
New-to-you vehicles come next, as well. Rentals, new motors and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap 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, so nothing stops the pour after it has started. Morton Hall or the middle of Swinderby: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Whether a Swinderby forecourt or a driveway over in Eagle Hall, spend a couple of seconds over these before any goes in.
- Read the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally aren't.
- On many vehicles, the size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- 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's where your filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside the nearest station? Check with the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Anywhere in Lincolnshire the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Switch off after you park — flat ground, motor stopped, and never rushed by Station Road on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and check again that your diesel cap never came off.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? Then stop right there. Stage five stays off limits.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Swinderby?
Don't start the engine: that's how the short order of things starts. Do not switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel won't dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of the tank, just where fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — BP, Shell or another — the staff will normally help roll the vehicle clear, if you ask. On your own drive in Swinderby? Then your car stays where it is.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Come off the Doncaster By-Pass — under 25 miles out of Swinderby — at the first junction. A short hop across Swinderby is a smaller job than a run towards Lincoln, under 10 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival in Swinderby, and what happens next
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Swinderby All Saints Church of England Primary School, near All Saints or on your own drive. The answers decide the work and our quote, so our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and if it has run. During the call itself, you hear our price — ahead of dispatch.
Your system is then cleaned thoroughly, once your tank is cleared. More than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: the crystals form, some metals are attacked, and nothing clears away unaided, no matter how long it is left. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Before leaving, our technicians fire it up and make sure that it's running correctly.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor hasn't run take roughly half an hour after we arrive. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Swinderby, briefly
Swinderby is a small village in Lincolnshire, situated approximately 8.5 miles south of Lincoln, and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Swinderby sits in a low-lying area of the Witham Valley, at an elevation of around 21 metres, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Morton Hall and South Scarle. Swinderby has a population of around 558 people, and its location near the A46 road makes it a commuter base for Lincoln and other nearby towns.
Swinderby and Lincolnshire: AdBlue drains across the area
As a rural village, Swinderby has the same vans as surrounding areas — Morton, South Scarle — all the way across LN postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Quickest of all: give a LN6 9 postcode for our van.
Shifting the car is not needed. We drain it where it is — a side street close to St Helena, a lay-by on the way to Long Plantation, a driveway. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Witham St Hughs Village Hall, ring and ask instead of guessing.
Swinderby people: the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Keep it off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, throughout Lincolnshire.