Woodsend: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Leave your motor and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. In Woodsend, finding it before your engine runs usually leaves draining and a thorough flush where it stands. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel feeds the motor — yet many newer diesels seen around Woodsend and Southend carry a second liquid as well. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to clean it, from a separate tank.
Separate tanks, different fillers. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is topped up at the petrol pump all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think what cap to use. The mistake lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank happen in Woodsend?
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things lining up together.
Haste follows from the warning. The vehicle tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a driveway off Aldbourne Road, or heading home in the car park outside the pub in the village.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — but a rental car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That's a second factor: a new car.
Third, the bottle goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in as readily, and once the tip starts, nothing stops it. It takes a few seconds, be it out in Upper Upham or right in the heart of Woodsend.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt around Woodsend or a drive over in Draycot Foliat. Seconds, that's all.
- Check the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually are not.
- On plenty of motors, size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Check for it.
- The handbook says which it lives if the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Swindon.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
The day the light goes on, wherever across Wiltshire, follow this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Copse Drove.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It sounds silly. It works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both sit under a flap, make sure it is shut before the bottle comes up.
- Finish when the tank fills or the bottle is empty; until then, pour slowly through the built-in spout.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? So stop right there. Skip stage five entirely.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Woodsend?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the engine. Leave your ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself starts your fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Esso, Smiths of Axford or another — the attendants will normally help push the car away, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Woodsend.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your motor has already run. Come off the M4 — under 3 miles out of Woodsend — at the first exit. Mileage matters — a short hop across Woodsend is a smaller job than driving under 50 miles towards Oxford — so say roughly how far it went.
What occurs when we get there around Woodsend
By Ogbourne CofE Primary School, close to Snap or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our technicians come to it. What fluid was put in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our engineers ask since the replies set both work and price. No one heads out until you've had our quote over the phone.
After that: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. 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 that counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. A test comes at the end: before that, fresh diesel is added, and the filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. Before we leave, we start the engine and make sure that it is running smoothly.
If the engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. While we travel, have a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Woodsend
Woodsend is a small hamlet in Wiltshire, situated inland at an elevation of 247 metres. Woodsend lies near the villages of Upper Upham and Lower Upham, and is also close to Ogbourne St George. Woodsend has a population of around 531 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Woodsend is located 26.1 miles from Oxford and 66.9 miles from London.
Woodsend and Wiltshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout SN postcodes, the teams that cover Woodsend — a rural hamlet — work the nearby locations too, Ogbourne St George and Lower Upham among them. A postcode starting SN8 2 gets our van to you fastest.
There's no need to move the car. The drain takes place right there, whether a driveway, a road near Battle of Aldbourne Chase, or a layby towards Chase Woods. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of The Giant's Grave.
For Woodsend drivers, the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it wherever it is, wherever in Wiltshire: switch it off then phone 0333 366 0103.