Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Chippenham
Leave the motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Usually, if the engine hasn't run, it's emptied and fully purged where your car is in Chippenham. Reading in advance? Then the rest covers how it comes about and what to prevent it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Not one liquid but two: that is what plenty of newer diesels near Chippenham and May Hill run, with diesel for your engine. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Different tanks, different fillers. Plenty of motors share a single flap for the two, whereas others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. Seldom filled, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, poured by a driver who must stop and think what cap it needs. That gap is where the error lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place in Chippenham
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Haste follows from the warning. The vehicle warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a driveway off B4293, or on the way home in the car park outside The Robin Hood.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, once begun, carries on. It's a few seconds, be it in Over Monnow or right in the heart of Chippenham.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A few seconds is all these take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Osbaston or a forecourt around Chippenham.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Plenty of cars fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of motors carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Lydney, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
Anywhere in Monmouthshire the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of Monnow Street.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew 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.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Spot at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop just there. Never go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Chippenham already?
Brief order, then. Top of that: your motor stays unstarted. Leave the ignition off too, since on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself starts your pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is pulled from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it is the Shell or the Applegreen, ask the attendants to help push the car away from the petrol pump. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway in Chippenham.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. On the M50, under 15 miles from Chippenham, that means the next junction. Distance counts — a short hop across Chippenham makes a smaller job than heading under 25 miles to Hereford — so tell us roughly how far it went.
What happens when our engineers turn up around Chippenham
Wherever the car has stopped, whether outside Redbrook Church of England Primary School, near The Robin Hood Inn or at home, the van comes to it. Our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and if it has run, because those answers settle the work and our quote. The price is given on the call, before any van leaves.
Your system is then rinsed thoroughly, after that tank is cleared. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
Unrun vehicles mostly need a half-hour job after the moment we arrive. The kit is fine on a live filling station, and hushed enough for a driveway late at night. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Chippenham, briefly
Chippenham is a suburban area in Monmouthshire, Wales, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of 17 metres. Chippenham lies near the towns of Over Monnow and Monmouth, and is also close to Wyesham. Chippenham has a population of around 3102 people, predominantly living in semi-detached houses. Chippenham is located 17.1 miles from Hereford and 112.9 miles from London.
Chippenham and Monmouthshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Being a residential suburb, Chippenham has the same vans as surrounding areas — Monmouth, Wyesham — all the way through NP postcodes and the wider area around them. A postcode starting NP25 3 gets our van to you fastest.
The car remains put. We drain it where it is — a side street near Monnow Gate, a lay-by on the way to Monmouth Sports Ground, a driveway. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Monnow Bridge.
In short, for Chippenham people
First, the cap; then, the tip. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Keep the car off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, across Monmouthshire.