How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Columbia Farm
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then put this page down a moment, leave the ignition and motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Columbia Farm. 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 does not.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Many newer diesels on the roads about Columbia Farm and Turbary Common carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. The exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to clean it, from a separate tank.
Different tanks, different fillers. Other cars keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more have the two together behind one flap. Topping up your diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually goes in out of a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think what filler to use. The slip lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens around Columbia Farm
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Talbot Rise before work, or in the car park at Kings Arms on the way home.
Then the car is strange. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
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. Ensbury Park or the middle of Columbia Farm: it takes the same few seconds either way.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Be it a Columbia Farm forecourt or a driveway over in Northbourne, take a couple of seconds on these before any is poured in.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- On plenty of vehicles, the size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of cars say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it is if the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Ask 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 outside Branksome.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
Wherever around Dorset the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Glenville Gardens.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap works — once you have found the filler and read it.
- The diesel cap remains on. When both share a flap, confirm it's closed before the bottle comes up.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Stage five stays off limits.
Columbia Farm: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Brief list, then. Top of it: your engine stays unstarted. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the car on. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
At a forecourt — Esso, Sainsbury's or another — the staff will usually help roll the car away, when you ask. At home around Columbia Farm? Then your car remains put.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. On the M27, under 25 miles from Columbia Farm, that means the next junction. A short hop across Columbia Farm is a smaller job than a run towards Salisbury, under 25 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival around Columbia Farm, and what occurs next
Outside Kingsleigh Primary School, near Ensbury Park Community Centre or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our technicians come to it. What fluid went in, the quantity, and whether it ran: we ask because those replies decide the work and quote. During the call itself, you are told the quote — ahead of dispatch.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Filter cleaned or, if it must be, replaced; fresh diesel in; and then a test of your car. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
If the motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. No money upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. Before we get there, have a look at your insurance documents; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Columbia Farm
Columbia Farm is a suburban area in Dorset, situated near the coast and characterised by detached housing. Columbia Farm sits at an elevation of 38 metres, close to nearby places such as Ensbury Park, East Howe, and Talbot Village. Columbia Farm is located near the city of Salisbury, which is 22.4 miles away, and is also within commuting distance of London, at 92.8 miles away. Columbia Farm has a population of approximately 6752 residents.
AdBlue drains in Columbia Farm and across Dorset
Over BH postcodes, our vans that cover Columbia Farm — a residential suburb — work the surrounding places too, Talbot Village and East Howe included. Fastest of all: quote a BH10 4 postcode for the van.
There's no need to move your car. The drain takes place right there, be it a driveway, a road by Church Hall, or a layby on the way to Slades Farm. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Catholic Church of Our Lady of Victories and St Bernadette, ring and ask instead of guessing.
The short version for Columbia Farm motorists
Pour nothing until you've read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep it off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Dorset.