Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bromham
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case set this page aside for now, leave the ignition and motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Bromham. Here in advance? In that case the rest covers why it happens and what to prevent it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Plenty of current diesels on the roads round Bromham and Sandy Lane carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
There is a filler for each tank. Some cars keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more have both side by side behind one flap. The diesel side is topped up at the petrol pump all the time. Much less frequently, the AdBlue side gets topped up — normally from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
Bromham: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
It's seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Hurry follows from the warning. The vehicle tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off School Lane, or on the way home in the car park outside The Greyhound.
Then, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old car — since a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not.
Nothing halts the tip after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Westbrook or the heart of Bromham: it is the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these first, on a forecourt in Bromham or a drive out in Heddington Wick. A few seconds, that's all.
- Position misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue ones are often blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Open the flap and check for a label — many cars mark which goes in each filler just there.
- The handbook shows which it lives if the filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver knows. Ask when you collect a rental or company car — at Melksham's car park, perhaps — rather than once the light appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
On the day the warning appears — wherever it is in Wiltshire — a simple routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of High Street, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park then switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It seems daft. It works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two sit under a flap, confirm it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, and look again — making sure your diesel filler remained shut the whole time. Only then, start your car.
Find at the second or third step that AdBlue went into the diesel filler? That is where you stop. Never go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Bromham already?
Brief list, then. First: the engine remains unstarted. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment your ignition goes on — so leave it off. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the base instead of mixing — and that is where the fuel is sucked from.
The attendants at Murco, Gulf or any forecourt will usually help to push the car away if you ask. Your own drive around Bromham is the place it should stay.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your motor has already run. Come off the M4 — under 10 miles out of Bromham — at the first exit. About how far did it go? Hopping across Bromham is smaller a job than a run of under 15 miles towards Bath, and so say.
Our arrival around Bromham, and what takes place next
Our van reaches your car anywhere it has come to rest — your own drive, beside St. Nicholas, or outside St Nicholas Church of England Primary School, Bromham. Both the work and the price rest on three replies — which liquid, which amount, and if it's run — so we ask. During the phone call itself, you are told the quote — before anything else.
Next: 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 doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. Filter flushed or, if it must be, swapped; fresh diesel in; then a check of your vehicle. Then our engineers fire it up and confirm it runs correctly before we go.
If the 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 after dark. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once the job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Bromham, for a moment
Bromham is a small village in Wiltshire, situated inland at an elevation of around 105 metres. Bromham lies approximately 13 miles east of Bath and 83 miles west of London, within a rural landscape of rolling hills and scattered settlements. Bromham has a population of around 556 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Bromham is surrounded by nearby places such as Westbrook, Chittoe Heath, and Chittoe.
AdBlue drains across Wiltshire, Bromham included
Being a rural village, Bromham has the same vans as nearby areas — Chittoe Heath, Chittoe — all the way through SN postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Quickest of all: give a SN15 2 postcode to our van.
The car stays where it is. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Berrymoor Wood, a side street near St Mary: our engineers drain the vehicle where it stands. Guessing won't help behind Spye Park House, close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe; phone and check.
The short version for Bromham motorists
Tip no AdBlue till you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave it off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it sits, anywhere in Wiltshire.