Top End: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Pause here for a moment when the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then phone 0333 366 0103. In Top End, finding it before your engine runs normally leaves draining and a full flush on the spot. The remainder of this page explains why it takes place and how to ensure it does not — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of newer diesels around North End, like those in Top End, run on two liquids; your engine gets just your diesel. The exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to fresh it, from its own tank.
Each tank comes with a filler of its own. Plenty of motors have a single flap for both, while some put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side gets filled constantly. Much less commonly, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. The mistake grows in that gap between them.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Top End
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the vehicle, and running out means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off The Butts, or outside Fox and Hounds on the way home that evening.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's a few seconds, whether out in Riseley or right in the heart of Top End.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Melchbourne or a forecourt in Top End.
- Position can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue caps are often blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually do not.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park at Bedford? Ask the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, not once the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Bedfordshire that is.
- Turn off once parked — flat ground, engine stopped, and never rushed beside Rotten Row on the verge.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It works.
- The two behind a single flap? So confirm the cap on the diesel side is still shut before lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the car, shut the cap and look again that the diesel cap never came off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Step five stays out.
Top End: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Do not start your engine: that is how the short order of things begins. Don't switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the attendants to help push the car away from the petrol pump if you're at a forecourt — the Shell, the Pod Garage Supplies or anywhere else. If you're on your own drive around Top End, leave the car where it stands.
Already run? Pull over once it is sensible, then turn off. Top End lies under 15 miles from the A1(M); on it, take the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Top End is smaller work than a trip of under 25 miles to Milton Keynes, so tell us.
Our arrival in Top End, and what takes place next
Our technicians come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Riseley CofE Primary School, near Church of All Saints or on your own driveway. Both the work and the price rest on three answers — which liquid, which amount, and if it's run — so our technicians ask. The price is given on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
After that: draining, then a full flush of the whole system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that counts more here than with petrol. Once your filter has been flushed — or renewed, if needed — fresh diesel goes in, and then your car is tested. We do not leave until it has been started and is running properly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour once our engineers arrive, provided the motor has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a busy forecourt yet quiet at night beside a house. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. It is worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Top End, briefly
Top End is a riverside locality in Bedfordshire, situated near the villages of Riseley and Bourne End. Top End has a population of around 1031 people and is characterized by detached housing. Top End sits at an elevation of 62 metres, close to Knotting Green and within commuting distance of Milton Keynes, which is approximately 18 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Bedfordshire, Top End included
Top End is a small village, and the vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Bourne End and Knotting Green among them, across the MK postcode area. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting MK44 1.
Shifting the car isn't necessary. Draining takes place right there, whether a drive, a road by Thurleigh Museum, or a lay-by towards The Mallowry. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Palmer Sport, ring and ask rather than guessing.
In short, for Top End drivers
Tip no AdBlue till you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere across Bedfordshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — so leave the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103.