Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Thenford
Pause here for a moment if the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, carried out right where the car sits around Thenford, is normally what it needs when found before your motor runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel feeds the engine — but many current diesels driven about Thenford and Great Purston carry a second fluid as well. Its own tank holds it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, and there a spray cleans the gas.
Every tank comes with a filler of its own. Other cars put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place the two side by side under one flap. Filling your diesel side at the pump happens all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally goes in from a bottle, poured by a driver who must stop and think what filler to use. The mistake lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place in Thenford?
Carelessness rarely causes it. Instead is three things lining up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Thenford Road before work, or in the car park at The New Inn on the way home.
Next, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old vehicle — since a hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, after started, keeps on. Lower Middleton Cheney or the heart of Thenford: it is the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Farthinghoe or a forecourt in Thenford, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Check the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue ones are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually are not.
- Many motors give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many motors carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- Cannot find it beside your diesel inlet? Then look beneath the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook will say which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Banbury? Ask whoever drove the car last before you set off, rather than when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Northamptonshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Meadow Drive, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It works.
- The two under one flap? So make sure the cap on the diesel side stays shut before lifting the bottle.
- Finish once your tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; before that, pour gently through its own spout.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? So stop just there. Never carry on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Thenford?
Do not start your motor: that's where the short order of things starts. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the vehicle on. Topping up with diesel will not dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
At a forecourt — Harvest Energy, Esso or any other — the attendants will normally help roll your car clear, if you ask. If you are on your own driveway in Thenford, leave the car where it is.
Where your motor has been run already, stop somewhere safe then turn the vehicle off. Thenford sits under 3 miles from the M40; on it, take the first junction. Mileage counts — a short hop across Thenford makes a smaller job than heading under 25 miles to Milton Keynes — so tell us about how far it went.
Thenford: what occurs when we get there
Outside Middleton Cheney Primary Academy, close to St Mary's or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, we come to it. Those answers decide the work and our quote, and so our engineers ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it has run. During the phone call itself, you hear the quote — before anything else.
Next: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and neither washes away unaided. That is why it matters more. Once the fuel filter has been cleaned — or renewed, if needed — clean diesel goes in, and finally your vehicle gets tested. Next we fire it up and check it runs properly before we leave.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor has not run need about half an hour after we arrive. No money upfront; you settle up on the day. At the end, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Thenford, briefly
Thenford is a small hamlet in Northamptonshire, situated in the East Midlands region of England, with a population of around 548 people. Thenford sits at an elevation of 128 metres, surrounded by rolling countryside and nearby villages such as Lower Middleton Cheney and Marston St Lawrence. Thenford is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Thenford is located approximately 20.9 miles from Milton Keynes and 61.6 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Northamptonshire, Thenford included
Over OX postcodes, our vans covering Thenford — a rural hamlet — work the nearby spots too, Middleton Cheney and Marston St Lawrence included. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting OX17 2.
The vehicle doesn't need to move. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Chenderit School Grounds, a side street near Middleton Cheney Village Hall: we drain the car where it is. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of St Lawrence.
The short version for Thenford people
Always, the cap; after that, the pour. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere across Northamptonshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — and so leave it off then phone 0333 366 0103.