Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Brittens: Why It Happens
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. Normally, if your motor has not turned, it's emptied and fully cleaned where your vehicle is around Brittens. The remainder of this page covers why it happens and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you're reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Diesel goes to your motor — but plenty of modern diesels driven about Brittens and Monger hold another liquid as well. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream and cleans it.
Every tank has one filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on many motors. On others, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in your boot instead. The diesel side is topped up at the pump all the time. Far less often, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. Mistakes happen in that gap between them.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank take place around Brittens?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Brookside Close, perhaps at Lamb Inn on the way home that evening.
The old car's cap is where the hand reaches — yet a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That's the second thing: a strange car.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once begun, keeps on. Paulton or the heart of Brittens: it is the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these first, on a forecourt around Brittens or a drive out in Upper Radford. Seconds, no more.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Look inside the fuel flap: many cars have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- Can't see it beside your diesel inlet? Then check below the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook says which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Oldfield Park, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — anywhere you are in Somerset — a simple routine to follow.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Simon's Close.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — after you've located your filler and read it.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the car on.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the car, close the cap and look again that your diesel cap was never opened off.
Find at the second or third step that AdBlue went into the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Stage five is off limits.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Brittens?
Brief order, then. First: the engine remains unstarted. The fuel pump starts on many diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — so leave it off. Thinning it with more diesel won't work, because AdBlue settles to the base instead of mixing — and that is where your fuel is sucked from.
The attendants at Murco, Murco Fual or any forecourt will usually lend a hand pushing the car away when you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Brittens.
Already started? Stop when it's sensible, then switch off. Brittens sits under 15 miles from the M32; there, use the first junction. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Bath, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Brittens.
When our engineers arrive around Brittens, what occurs?
Our van reaches the vehicle wherever it stopped — your own driveway, beside The Hub, or outside Paulton Infant School. The replies determine this work and our quote, and so our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and whether it's run. You hear that quote by phone, before anyone sets off.
Next: draining, then a full flush of the whole system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
If your motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Nothing upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Brittens
Brittens is a locality in Somerset, situated inland at an elevation of 114 metres, approximately 7.9 miles from the city of Bath. Brittens is characterized by its semi-detached housing and is located near other places such as Paulton, Winterfield, and Withy Mills. Brittens has a population of around 2539 residents and is about 103 miles west of London.
AdBlue drains round Brittens, and Somerset beyond
Winterfield and Withy Mills are among the places around Brittens, a small village, that the same vans cover, over BS postcodes. Quickest of all: give a BS39 7 postcode to our van.
No need to move the car. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Paulton Baptist Church, a lay-by on the way to Paulton Rovers Football Club, a driveway. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Paulton Methodist Church, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Brittens drivers: the short version
Tip nothing till you have read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it wherever it stands, anywhere in Somerset: keep the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103.