How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Well End
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and your ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Well End. Reading in advance? Then the rest explains why it comes about and what to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads round Well End and Cores End carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
There's a filler on every tank. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. Far less frequently, the AdBlue side is filled — normally from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur in Well End?
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, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Wendover Road before work, or in the car park at The Black Lion on the way home.
New-to-you motors are second, as well. Rentals, new vehicles and company vehicles place their fillers in new places, and the hand reaches for the cap it 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, and so nothing stops the tip after it has started. Bourne End or the heart of Well End: it is the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt around Well End or a driveway out in Little Marlow. A few seconds, no more.
- Position can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue caps are often blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- Many motors give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of cars carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler is if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Bourne End, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
For the day the warning appears — wherever it is in Buckinghamshire — a simple routine to follow.
- Not in a rush on the side of Abbey Road, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- Both behind one flap? Then confirm the lid on your diesel filler stays closed before lifting the bottle.
- Stop when your tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; before that, tip gently using its own spout.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? Then stop just there. Stage five is out.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Well End?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch it on. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
The attendants at Shell, BP or another forecourt will usually lend a hand to push the vehicle clear when you ask. Your own drive in Well End is the place it should stay.
Already started? Stop once it is safe, then switch off. Well End sits under 3 miles from the M40; on it, use the first exit. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Well End is less work than a trip of under 25 miles towards St Albans, so say.
Our arrival around Well End, and what takes place next
Outside Claytons Primary School, close to Bourne End Library or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, we come to it. Our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, because the answers decide this work and our price. No one sets off until you have heard the quote by phone.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither clears away by itself. Hence it counts more. A test comes last: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and your filter is cleaned or changed as needed. We don't go until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
If the motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Nothing in advance; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Well End
Well End is a village in Buckinghamshire, situated inland at an elevation of 42 metres, approximately 25.8 miles from London. Well End lies near the villages of Bourne End and Fern, and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Well End remains a small, residential community with a population of around 913 people.
AdBlue drains across Buckinghamshire, Well End included
Well End is a rural village, and the teams that cover it also work the towns around it, Fern and Sheepridge among them, across the SL postcode area. Give a postcode beginning SL8 5, and our van gets there quickest.
Your car does not need to move. Anywhere it stands — near Bourne End Community Centre, in a lay-by en route to Peace Garden, on a drive — that is where it is emptied. Guessing won't help behind Saint Dunstan's Church, on a boundary, or anywhere awkward to describe; phone and ask.
In short, for Well End motorists
Tip no AdBlue till you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it sits, anywhere in Buckinghamshire.