How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Woodgreen
Stop here a minute if your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Normally, if the motor has not turned, it is drained and thoroughly flushed where the vehicle sits around Woodgreen. Reading in advance? Then the rest explains why it comes about and how to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Many modern diesels on the roads around Woodgreen and Poffley End carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
There's a filler on each tank. Some motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place the two side by side behind one flap. Filling the diesel side at the pump happens all the time. Much less commonly, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. It is in the gap that the error lives.
Woodgreen: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
Haste comes from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a drive off West End, or on the way home in the car park at The Elm Tree.
The old car's filler is where your hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That's a second thing: a new motor.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip after it has started. Newland or the middle of Woodgreen: it takes the same few seconds either way.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
A few seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Shores Green or a forecourt in Woodgreen.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it rather than going by position.
- On many motors, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Look for it.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The previous driver knows. Check as you pick up a rental or fleet car — at Finstock's car park, perhaps — rather than once the warning appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
Anywhere in Oxfordshire the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of Captains Mill.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two share a flap, confirm it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop right there. Don't go on to step five.
Woodgreen: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Brief order, then. Top of that: the engine remains off. Keep your ignition off too, since on many diesels switching it on by itself starts the pump. Topping up with diesel will not weaken it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of your tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — BP, Shell or another — the staff will normally help roll your car clear, if you ask. On your own drive around Woodgreen? Then the car remains where it is.
Already run? Stop when it is safe, then turn off. Woodgreen sits under 15 miles from the M40; on it, use the next junction. Distance matters — a quick hop across Woodgreen makes a smaller job than heading under 15 miles to Oxford — so say roughly how far it went.
When our engineers turn up around Woodgreen, what takes place?
Our van comes to the vehicle wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, near elm christian fellowship, or by Witney Community Primary School. Those replies decide the work and our price, and so our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. That price comes over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
The system is then purged thoroughly, once your tank is emptied. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. The filter flushed or, where needed, replaced; clean diesel in; then a check of the vehicle. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running properly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour once we get there, as long as the engine has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It's worth checking your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Woodgreen, for a moment
Woodgreen is a suburban area in Oxfordshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 86 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Woodgreen lies approximately 10 miles west of Oxford and 61 miles west of London, placing it within the commuter belt of both cities. Woodgreen is close to nearby places such as Newland, Witney, and Cogges, and has a population of around 6805 residents. Woodgreen's riverside setting contributes to its scenic environment.
AdBlue drains around Woodgreen and across Oxfordshire
Being a residential suburb, Woodgreen has the same vans as nearby places — Witney, Cogges — all the way across OX postcodes and the surrounding area around them. A postcode starting OX28 1 gets our van to you fastest.
No need to shift the vehicle. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Holy Trinity Church, a lay-by on the way to Wood Green, a driveway. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Witney Blanket Hall, ring and ask rather than assuming.
The short version for Woodgreen people
First, the cap; then, the pour. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it is, wherever in Oxfordshire: switch the car off then call 0333 366 0103.