Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Clapgate: Why It Occurs
Pause here a minute if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. In Clapgate, finding it before the motor turns normally means a drain and a full flush where it stands. The remainder of this page covers why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't — handy if you're reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Not one fluid but two: that is what plenty of newer diesels near Clapgate and Merry Field Hill run, with diesel feeding the motor. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to fresh them, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at each filling station call-out, again and again. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. The mistake lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place in Clapgate
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a drive off B3078 before work, or in the car park outside The Stocks Inn on the way home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car warns you, and if it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — but a hire car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That is the second thing: an unfamiliar motor.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the pour once it has started. Furzehill or the middle of Clapgate: it takes the same few seconds either way.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Whether a Clapgate forecourt or a driveway out in Hound Hill, take a couple of seconds over these before anything goes in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally isn't. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- Plenty of cars give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on plenty of vehicles. Look for it.
- The handbook says which it is when your filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Hamworthy? Check with the person who drove it last before you set off, rather than when the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
The day the light comes on, wherever around Dorset, follow this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Cranborne Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, yes, yet it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, make sure it's shut before the bottle comes up.
- Finish when your tank fills or the bottle is empty; until then, tip slowly using the built-in spout.
- Before you start your car, close the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap never opened off.
Find at stage two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? Then stop right there. Step five is out.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Clapgate?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the engine. The fuel pump starts on many diesels the moment your ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
On a forecourt — BP, Shell or another — the attendants will normally help roll the car away, when you ask. If you are on your own driveway in Clapgate, leave it where it is.
Where your engine has been run by now, pull over safely then turn the car off. Leave the M27 — under 25 miles out of Clapgate — at the next exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Salisbury, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Clapgate.
When our engineers turn up around Clapgate, what happens?
Anywhere your car has stopped, whether by Wimborne First School and Nursery, beside HoneyBrook Farm or on your own drive, our van comes to it. What fluid went in, the quantity, and if it ran: our engineers ask because those replies decide both work and price. On the call itself, you hear the price — ahead of anything else.
Your system is then purged thoroughly, after that tank is drained. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and neither clears out unaided. Hence it counts more. Filter flushed or, if needed, replaced; clean diesel in; then a check of the vehicle. Your engine is started next and tested to be sure it runs correctly, all before our engineers go.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour after our technicians get there, provided your engine has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Clapgate, for a moment
Clapgate is a small hamlet situated on the riverside in Dorset, with a low elevation of around 29 metres. Clapgate lies near the villages of Furzehill and Grange, and is close to the larger settlement of Pig Oak. Clapgate is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, and is located approximately 19 miles from the city of Salisbury. Clapgate is a relatively small community, with a population of around 500 people.
AdBlue drains around Clapgate and across Dorset
As a rural hamlet, Clapgate shares its vans nearby places — Grange, Pig Oak — all the way through BH postcodes and the wider area beyond. A postcode starting BH21 4 gets the van to you fastest.
Shifting your car is not necessary. Wherever it sits — beside St Michael and All Angels Church, in a layby heading to Catley Copse, at home — that is where it gets cleared. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Walford Mill Crafts, ring and ask rather than guessing.
The short version for Clapgate drivers
Read the cap before you pour. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it is, wherever across Dorset: switch the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.