How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Whitchurch
Pause reading a minute if the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. In Whitchurch, finding it before the engine turns usually means draining and a full flush on the spot. 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 does not.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Plenty of modern diesels around Hardwick, as well as Whitchurch, run on two fluids; the engine gets only the diesel. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. Far less frequently, the AdBlue side gets topped up — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
Whitchurch: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
Haste follows from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off Market Hill, or on the way home in the car park at The White Swan.
Then the vehicle is new. A hire car, a new car 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.
Third, the bottle goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in as easily, and after the pour begins, nothing stops it. Whether it occurs in Hunters Yard or the middle of Whitchurch, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A few seconds is all these take — so check them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Pitchcott or a forecourt in Whitchurch.
- Position can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue ones are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — plenty of vehicles mark which belongs in each inlet just there.
- The handbook says which it lives when your filler is not next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask when you pick up a hire car or fleet car — from Aylesbury Vale Parkway's car park, perhaps — not once the warning comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
On the day the warning appears — wherever you are in Buckinghamshire — a routine to follow.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Castle Lane.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud while unscrewing it. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- Both behind a single flap? So make sure the cap on the diesel filler is still shut before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and look again — confirm the diesel filler stayed closed throughout. Only then, start your car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Never go on to stage five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Whitchurch?
Brief order, then. First: the engine remains off. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the car on. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it's the Gulf or the Applegreen, ask the attendants to help roll the car away from the petrol pump. At home in Whitchurch? So the vehicle remains where it is.
Already run? Pull over when it's safe, then switch off. Come off the M40 — under 15 miles out of Whitchurch — at the first junction. A short hop across Whitchurch is a smaller job than a run towards Milton Keynes, under 15 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
When our engineers get there in Whitchurch, what occurs?
By Whitchurch Combined School, close to Whitchurch Methodist Church or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run, since the replies decide the work and our quote. You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off.
Emptying the tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and none of it clears out by itself. Hence it counts more. The filter flushed or, if it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; then a test of your vehicle. Before we go, our engineers start it and check that it's running correctly.
If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. The insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Whitchurch, briefly
Whitchurch is a small village in Buckinghamshire, situated in the inland countryside of the South East region. Whitchurch sits at an elevation of 139 metres, approximately 39.9 miles from London and 11.7 miles from Milton Keynes. Whitchurch is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock and is surrounded by nearby places such as Hunters Yard, Creslow, and Oving.
AdBlue drains about Whitchurch, and Buckinghamshire beyond
Creslow and Oving are among the places around Whitchurch, a rural village, that the same teams cover, throughout HP postcodes. A postcode starting HP22 4 gets our van to you fastest.
The car stays put. We drain it where it is — a side street near St John the Evangelist, a lay-by on the way to Evelyn's Patch, a drive. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of St John's Hall.
For Whitchurch drivers, the short version
Pour no AdBlue until you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around Buckinghamshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — so leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103.