Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Whittington: Why It Happens
Leave your motor and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Usually, if your engine has not turned, it is emptied and fully cleaned where the vehicle is around Whittington. Here before the event? Then the rest explains how it comes about and what to stop it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Plenty of current diesels on the roads round Whittington and Grendon carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Many of vehicles share a single flap for the two, while others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Filling the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. Far less frequently, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. The mistake grows in that gap between them.
Whittington: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the car, and running out leads to limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Old Holly Lane, or at Kings Head on the way home after work.
Next, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old car — since a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not.
A spout-topped bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after started, keeps on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Whittington or out in Pinwall.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Grendon Common or a forecourt in Whittington, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Position can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps are often blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask as you pick up a hire car or fleet car — at Atherstone's car park, perhaps — rather than once the warning appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
Anywhere around Warwickshire the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of B4116.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, yes, yet it does the trick.
- The two behind a single flap? So make sure the cap on your diesel side stays shut before lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Find during the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Leave out stage five entirely.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Whittington?
Do not start your engine: that's how the short order of things starts. Do not switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Diluting it with extra diesel fails, since AdBlue settles to the base instead of blending — and that's where the fuel is sucked from.
The staff at Tesco, Murco or any forecourt will usually help pushing your car away when you ask. If you're on your own drive around Whittington, leave the car where it is.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Leave the M42 — under 5 miles out of Whittington — at the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Whittington is smaller work than a run of under 15 miles towards Coventry, and so say.
Our arrival around Whittington, and what happens next
Our van comes to the car wherever it stopped — your own drive, near Atherstone War Memorial, or outside Racemeadow Primary Academy. Those replies decide this work and the price, so our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and whether it has run. You hear that price by phone, before anybody heads out.
Emptying that tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the fuel 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 the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. After the fuel filter is cleaned — or replaced, if needed — clean diesel goes in, and then the vehicle gets tested. Before we leave, our technicians fire it up and check that it's running properly.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once we arrive, as long as the engine has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Whittington
Whittington is a small hamlet in Warwickshire, situated on the lakeside at an elevation of 81 metres. Whittington lies near the larger towns of Atherstone and Coventry, with the city of Coventry being approximately 12.7 miles away. Whittington is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Whittington is also close to other nearby places such as Pinwall and Merevale.
AdBlue drains round Whittington, and Warwickshire beyond
Merevale and Atherstone are among the towns around Whittington, a rural hamlet, that the same vans cover, throughout CV postcodes. Quote a postcode beginning CV9 3, and our van gets there quickest.
No need to move the vehicle. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Atherstone Leisure Centre, a lay-by on the way to Sparrowdale Wood, a driveway. Tricky to explain, like the back of White Hart Community Groups? By a county line? Asking beats guessing, and so phone.
The short version for Whittington drivers
First, the cap; then, the pour. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Keep the car switched off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, throughout Warwickshire.