Berry Hill: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Stop reading a minute when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out just where the car stands around Berry Hill, is usually what it takes if caught before the engine runs. 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.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
No single fluid but two: that's how many newer diesels near Berry Hill and Shortstanding carry, with diesel for the motor. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the gas to fresh them, from its own tank.
Each tank has one filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that's the arrangement on many vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. Much less regularly, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens around Berry Hill
Carelessness rarely causes it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
Haste comes from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off Joyford Hill, or heading home in the car park outside The Globe.
Then the car is strange. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, once started, keeps on. It's a few seconds, whether in Christchurch or bang in the centre of Berry Hill.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Lower Berry Hill or a forecourt around Berry Hill, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually isn't. Read it instead of going by position.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of vehicles. Look for it.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Lydney, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Anywhere across Gloucestershire the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time in hand — never rushing on the side of The Lonk.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two share a flap, confirm it's closed before the bottle comes up.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Skip step five altogether.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Berry Hill already?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with no starting your motor. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the vehicle on. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, just where fuel is taken from.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it's the Texaco or the BP, ask the attendants to help roll the car away from the pump. Your own drive around Berry Hill is where it should stay.
Where your engine has been run by now, stop safely and turn the car off. The next junction is where to come off if you're on the M50, under 10 miles from Berry Hill. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Gloucester, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Berry Hill.
Our arrival around Berry Hill, and what happens next
We come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Berry Hill Primary School, close to Christ Church or on your own drive. Both the work and our price depend on three answers — what liquid, what amount, and whether it's run — so we ask. You hear that quote by phone, before anyone sets off.
After that: draining, then a full flush of the entire system. Much more than with petrol, it counts here: crystals form, some metals are attacked, and nothing washes away unaided, no matter how long it sits. Filter flushed or, if it must be, swapped; fresh diesel in; and then a test of the car. Your engine is fired up next and checked to confirm it runs smoothly, all before our technicians head off.
If your engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents your insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Berry Hill
Berry Hill is a village in Gloucestershire, situated inland at an elevation of 222 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Berry Hill lies near several other small settlements, including Christchurch and Five Acres, and is within a short distance of Joyford. Berry Hill is located approximately 16 miles from Gloucester and around 109 miles from London, making it a rural community with some commuting links to larger cities.
AdBlue drains across Gloucestershire, Berry Hill included
Five Acres and Joyford are among the places near Berry Hill, a rural village, that the same teams cover, throughout GL postcodes. Quote a postcode beginning GL16 7, and our van gets there fastest.
Your car stays where it is. Wherever it stands — near Site of Chapel, in a layby heading to Forest Holidays Forest of Dean, at home — that's where it is drained. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Mount of Olives, ring and ask instead of assuming.
The short version for Berry Hill drivers
Before you pour, read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it is, anywhere across Gloucestershire: switch the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103.