How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Winterbrook
Keep the motor and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before the motor runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Winterbrook. 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 doesn't.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of newer diesels around Newnham Murren, like those in Winterbrook, run on two fluids; the motor takes just your diesel. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where spraying treats the gas.
Different tanks, different fillers. Many of vehicles have a single flap for both, while some move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, the diesel side gets filled all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. The mistake grows in that gap between them.
Winterbrook: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
Carelessness seldom explains it. What does is three things lining up at once.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the car, and running out means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Winterbrook Lane, or at The Royal Standard on the way home that evening.
The old car's cap is where the hand reaches — but a rental car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's a second factor: a strange vehicle.
Nothing stops the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it happens in Mongewell or the middle of Winterbrook, it is the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in North Stoke or a forecourt around Winterbrook, check these. They take a few seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on many cars. Check for it.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler is if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Cholsey, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Oxfordshire that is.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, engine stopped, and not in a rush beside Wintergreen Lane at the roadside.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Winterbrook?
Short order, then. First: the engine stays unstarted. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the car on. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the attendants to help roll the car clear of the pump if you are at a forecourt — the Esso, the BP or somewhere else. Your own driveway in Winterbrook is where it should stay.
When the motor has been run by now, pull over safely and switch the vehicle off. The next exit means where to come off when you're on the M40, under 10 miles from Winterbrook. A short hop across Winterbrook is a smaller job than a run towards Oxford, under 15 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we get there in Winterbrook, what occurs?
The van comes to the car anywhere it stopped — your own driveway, beside Saint Mary, or outside St John's Primary School. Both the work and our quote depend on three answers — which liquid, which quantity, and if it has run — so our engineers ask. You get that quote by phone, before anybody sets off.
Draining that tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither clears away by itself. Hence it matters more. Filter flushed or, if it must be, replaced; fresh diesel in; then a check of the vehicle. Then our engineers start the car and check it runs correctly before we go.
Unrun cars mostly mean a half-hour job from arrival. The kit is fine on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours once this job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Winterbrook and where it is
Winterbrook is a suburban area in Oxfordshire, situated on the banks of the River Thames at an elevation of around 50 metres. Winterbrook lies near the towns of Wallingford and Abingdon, and is close to the villages of Mongewell and Crowmarsh Gifford. Winterbrook has a population of approximately 1745 people, living in predominantly semi-detached housing. Winterbrook is located 12.4 miles from Oxford and 43.3 miles from London.
AdBlue drains about Winterbrook, and Oxfordshire beyond
Wallingford and Crowmarsh Gifford are among the towns near Winterbrook, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, over OX postcodes. Quote a postcode beginning OX10 9, and our van gets there fastest.
Moving your car is not needed. Draining happens on the spot, be it a drive, a street by Oxford University Boat Club, or a lay-by towards The Kine Croft. Guessing doesn't help behind St Leonard's, close to a boundary, or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and ask.
In short, for Winterbrook motorists
First, the cap; then, the pour. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, wherever in Oxfordshire: keep it off and ring 0333 366 0103.