Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Walters Ash: Why It Happens
Leave the engine and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain and a full flush, done just where the car stands around Walters Ash, is normally all it takes when found before your engine runs. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the page covers the why it happens and the how to avoid it altogether.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Diesel feeds the motor — but many newer diesels seen about Walters Ash and Darvillshill carry another fluid as well. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, where spraying cleans the fumes.
There's a filler for each tank. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on many motors. On others, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Diesel goes in at every forecourt call-out, again and again. Seldom topped up, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, poured by a driver who must stop and think what cap to use. The slip lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Walters Ash: how it takes place
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things coming up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, the car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Main Road before work, or in the car park at The Black Lion on the way home.
The old car's filler is where the hand reaches — but a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is the second factor: a strange vehicle.
Nothing stops the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Walters Ash or out in Flowers Bottom.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A couple of seconds is all these take — so check them before you pour anything, on a drive in Bradenham or a forecourt in Walters Ash.
- Position can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue ones are often blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the filler flap and look for a label — many cars mark which belongs in which inlet just there.
- Cannot find it beside your diesel filler? In that case check beneath the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Saunderton.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
On the day the warning comes on — wherever you are across Buckinghamshire — a routine to follow.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Bradenham Wood Lane.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- The two under a single flap? Then confirm the cap on the diesel side stays closed before raising the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop right there. Do not go on to stage five.
Walters Ash: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your motor. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition goes on — so keep it off. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
At a forecourt — Esso, Murco or any other — the attendants will normally help roll the vehicle away, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around Walters Ash.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. Come off the M40 — under 5 miles out of Walters Ash — at the first junction. A short hop across Walters Ash is a smaller job than a run towards St Albans, under 25 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
Walters Ash: what happens when our technicians get there
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Naphill and Walters Ash School, close to Park Wood or on your own drive. Which liquid went in, the quantity, and if it ran: our engineers ask because the answers decide both work and quote. On the phone call itself, you are told our quote — before anything else.
Then that tank is cleared and the fuel system rinsed thoroughly. 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 here than with petrol. After your filter is flushed — or renewed, where required — fresh diesel is added, and finally the car gets tested. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running properly.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour once our engineers get there, provided the motor has not run — and the pumps we use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Walters Ash, briefly
Walters Ash is a small village in Buckinghamshire, situated in the inland countryside of the South East region. Walters Ash sits at an elevation of 196 metres, surrounded by nearby places such as Flowers Bottom, Upper North Dean, and Speen. Walters Ash has a population of approximately 1137 residents, with predominantly terraced housing. Walters Ash is located 30.8 miles from London and 20.1 miles from the nearest city, St Albans.
AdBlue drains around Walters Ash and across Buckinghamshire
Upper North Dean and Speen are among the towns around Walters Ash, a rural village, that the same teams cover, over HP postcodes. A postcode starting HP14 4 gets our van to you fastest.
No need to shift the vehicle. We drain it where it is — a side street near North Dean Village Hall, a lay-by on the way to Hangings Plantation, a driveway. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of St Botolph's, Bradenham.
For Walters Ash people, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere around Buckinghamshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — and so leave the car off then call 0333 366 0103.