Washingborough: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case set this page down for now, keep your ignition and engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Washingborough. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels in Fiskerton, as well as Washingborough, run on two fluids; the engine takes only the diesel. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Other vehicles put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot more place the two side by side under one flap. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. The mistake grows in that gap between them.
Washingborough: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a driveway off High Street before work, or in the car park at Hunters Leap Inn on the way home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car tells you, and once it's gone, limp mode follows.
Unfamiliar vehicles are next, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company motors put their fillers in new places, and the hand goes for the cap used on the old one.
Lastly, the bottle goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in just as easily, and after the pour starts, no part halts it. Whether it happens in Heighington or the middle of Washingborough, it's the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Branston or a forecourt in Washingborough, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of vehicles. Look for it.
- The handbook shows where it lives if the filler isn't next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Lincoln Central? Ask whoever drove it last before leaving, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
For the day the light appears — wherever you are in Lincolnshire — a routine to follow.
- Pull in somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Penfold Lane.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, perhaps, yet it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. When the two sit under a flap, confirm it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Never go on to stage five.
Washingborough: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the engine. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the car on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the attendants to help push the car clear of the petrol pump if you're at a forecourt — the JET, the Tesco Petrol Station or anywhere else. At home around Washingborough? Then the vehicle stays put.
When the engine has been run already, stop safely then turn the vehicle off. On the M180, under 25 miles from Washingborough, that means the next junction. Mileage matters — a short hop across Washingborough makes a smaller job than driving under 3 miles to Lincoln — so say about how far it went.
Our arrival in Washingborough, and what takes place next
We come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Washingborough Academy, near St John or on your own drive. Our engineers ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, because the answers settle this work and the price. No one sets off before you've had our price over the phone.
Draining the tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and neither clears away by itself. Hence it counts more. Once the filter is flushed — or replaced, where needed — clean diesel goes in, and then the car is tested. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
Unstarted vehicles usually mean a half-hour visit from the moment we arrive. The kit is fine on a busy filling station, and quiet enough for a driveway late at night. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Washingborough, briefly
Washingborough is a village situated on the banks of the River Witham in Lincolnshire, with a low elevation of around 16 metres. Washingborough lies close to the city of Lincoln, approximately 2.8 miles to the south, and is surrounded by nearby villages such as Heighington and Cherry Willingham. Washingborough has a population of around 1265 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Washingborough is located near the A46 road, providing easy access to the surrounding area.
AdBlue drains in Washingborough and across Lincolnshire
As a village, Washingborough shares its vans surrounding places — Cherry Willingham, North Greetwell — all the way across LN postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Quote a postcode beginning LN4 1, and our van gets there quickest.
Shifting your car isn't necessary. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Chapel Park, a side street close to Washingborough Scout Hut: our technicians drain the car where it is. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Washingborough Army Cadet Detachment.
For Washingborough people, the short version
First, the cap; then, the pour. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around Lincolnshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — so leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.