Arle: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and the ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. Usually, if your engine hasn't turned, it is emptied and fully cleaned where your car sits around Arle. Not happened yet? Further down, the page explains the reasons it happens and the ways to avoid it for good.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Diesel feeds your motor — but plenty of modern diesels seen about Arle and Rowanfield hold another fluid too. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of motors share a single flap for both, while some put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, the diesel side is topped up constantly. Rarely topped up, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, tipped by a driver who must stop and think what filler to use. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place around Arle?
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Grevil Road before work, or in the car park outside The Umbrella on the way home.
Then, your hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old motor — since a rental car, a new motor or a company car places the fillers where your last one did not.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the pour once it has started. Whether it takes place in Kingsditch or the middle of Arle, it's the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Alstone or a forecourt in Arle, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue ones are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually aren't.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Check inside your fuel flap: many motors have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler is if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask when you pick up a hire car or company car — at Cheltenham Spa's car park, say — not once the light appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
On the day the warning comes on — anywhere you are in Gloucestershire — a simple routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of Arle Road, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. When both share a flap, confirm it's closed before the bottle comes up.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and check again — confirm the diesel cap remained closed the whole time. Only then, start the vehicle.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? Then stop just there. Never carry on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Arle already?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting the motor. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, because AdBlue settles to the base rather than blending — and that is where the fuel is sucked from.
On a forecourt — Shell, EG On the Move or another — the staff will usually help push the car clear, if you ask. At home in Arle? So the vehicle remains put.
When your engine has run already, pull over somewhere safe and turn the car off. Come off the M5 — under 3 miles out of Arle — at the first exit. Distance counts — a short hop across Arle makes a smaller job than driving under 10 miles towards Gloucester — so say roughly how far it went.
Arle: what occurs when our technicians get there
Our van comes to your car wherever it stopped — your own driveway, near St Barnabas Church, or outside Rowanfield Infant School. The answers settle this work and the price, and so we ask what went in, about how much, and whether it's run. Nobody sets off before you've had our price over the phone.
After that: draining, then a full flush of the entire system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of that clears away by itself. That is why it counts more. Testing comes last: before that, clean diesel is added, and your filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. Before we go, our engineers start the car and check that it's running properly.
Unstarted cars mostly mean a half-hour job from arrival. The kit is safe on a live forecourt, and quiet enough for a residential street after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Arle
Arle is a suburban area in Gloucestershire, situated on the riverside near Gloucester, with a mix of semi-detached housing and local amenities. Arle sits at an elevation of 46 metres, close to the confluence of the River Severn and surrounding waterways. Arle is part of the larger Gloucester urban area, with nearby neighbourhoods including Kingsditch, St Peters, and Hesters Way. Arle has a population of around 7028 residents, living in a variety of semi-detached homes.
AdBlue drains around Arle, and Gloucestershire beyond
Arle is a residential suburb, and our teams that cover it also work the places around it, St Peters and Hesters Way among them, across the GL postcode area. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting GL51 7.
The vehicle does not need to move. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Chelt Walk Park, a side street close to YMCA: our technicians drain the car where it is. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Petersfield Stadium, ring and ask instead of assuming.
In short, for Arle drivers
Always, the cap; after that, the pour. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere in Gloucestershire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — so leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103.