AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bromyard: Why It Happens and How to Avoid It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Around Bromyard, finding it before the motor turns normally means a drain and a full flush where it stands. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Not one fluid but two: that is how plenty of modern diesels near Bromyard and Bromyard Downs carry, with diesel feeding your motor. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Other cars put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more place the two together behind one flap. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up constantly. The AdBlue side is topped up far less often, normally from a bottle, and usually by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank happen around Bromyard?
It's seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a drive off New Road before work, or in the car park at The Queens Arms on the way home: that is where the rushed top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it's gone, limp mode follows.
Then, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old motor — since a hire car, a new motor or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
Nothing stops the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It takes a few seconds, be it in The Knapp or bang in the heart of Bromyard.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Munderfield Row or a forecourt around Bromyard.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — plenty of cars show what belongs in each filler right there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler is if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Check with 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 Malvern Link.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
The day the light comes on, wherever around Herefordshire, follow this routine.
- Pull in on level, motor off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of High Street.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It seems daft. It works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Don't carry on to step five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Bromyard?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your engine. Leave the ignition off too, since on many diesels switching it on alone starts your fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
The staff at Texaco, Maple Leaf or another forecourt will normally lend a hand to push the car away if you ask. If you are on your own drive in Bromyard, leave the car where it is.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. On the M5, under 15 miles from Bromyard, that means the next junction. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Worcester, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Bromyard.
What happens when our engineers turn up in Bromyard
By St Peter's Primary School, close to The Bromyard Centre or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Both the work and the price depend on three answers — which liquid, which amount, and whether it's run — so our engineers ask. On the call itself, you hear the price — before anything else.
Then the tank is drained and the system rinsed thoroughly. 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 the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. The filter cleaned or, where needed, replaced; fresh diesel in; and then a test of the car. Before we leave, our technicians fire it up and confirm that it is running smoothly.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor hasn't run need roughly half an hour after we arrive. 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 whilst we're on the way.
About Bromyard and where it is
Bromyard is a small town situated on the River Frome in northwest Herefordshire, with a population of around 4292 people. Bromyard sits at an elevation of 127 metres, surrounded by rolling countryside and nearby places such as The Knapp, West Hill, and Flaggoners Green. Bromyard has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are particularly prevalent. Bromyard is located 12 miles from Worcester and 112 miles from London, making it a relatively rural town with good transport links.
AdBlue drains around Bromyard and across Herefordshire
Throughout HR postcodes, our vans that cover Bromyard — a riverside town — work the surrounding spots too, Flaggoners Green and West Hill among them. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting HR7 4.
The car does not need to shift. Draining takes place right there, be it a driveway, a road by Rowberry Street Complex, or a lay-by towards The Knapp. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Conquest Theatre, ring and ask rather than assuming.
The short version for Bromyard people
Before you pour, read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it stands, anywhere across Herefordshire: keep the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103.