How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Credenhill
Keep the engine and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Usually, if your motor has not run, it is drained and thoroughly flushed where the vehicle sits in Credenhill. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Many newer diesels on the roads about Credenhill and Brinsop carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler on every tank. Many of motors have a single flap for both, whereas some move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Filling the diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. The AdBlue side is topped up far less often, normally from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank take place in Credenhill?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
Hurry comes from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a drive off Dovecote Lane, or heading home in the car park outside the pub in the village.
Then the vehicle is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once started, keeps on. Kenchester or the heart of Credenhill: it is the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Swainshill or a forecourt in Credenhill, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Plenty of vehicles give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on many cars. Look for it.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Hereford, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
Wherever across Herefordshire the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Elm Road, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park and switch off first.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you have located your filler and read the cap.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Discover at the second or third step that AdBlue went in the wrong tank? That's where you stop. Step five is out.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Credenhill?
Don't start the engine: that's where the short order of things begins. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels as soon as the ignition is switched on — so leave it off. Topping up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of the tank, right where fuel is taken from.
The staff at Asda Express, Shell or another forecourt will usually help to push your car away if asked. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Credenhill.
Already started? Stop when it is sensible, then turn off. Leave the M50 — under 15 miles out of Credenhill — at the next junction. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Hereford, under 5 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Credenhill.
When our engineers get there around Credenhill, what takes place?
Wherever the car has stopped, whether outside St Mary's CofE Primary School, near St Mary or at home, the van travels to it. Our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and whether it has run, because the answers settle this work and the quote. You get that price by phone, before anyone heads out.
Emptying your tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the fuel system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. Testing is last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. We do not go until it has been started and is running smoothly.
With pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor has not run take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. Nothing upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — and so use the wait to check yours.
About Credenhill, briefly
Credenhill is a village in Herefordshire, situated inland at an elevation of 81 metres, approximately 4 miles west of Hereford. Credenhill lies near several notable local landmarks, including Kenchester and Sugwas Pool. Credenhill has a population of around 2024 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Credenhill is located about 121 miles west of London, in the heart of the West Midlands region.
AdBlue drains across Herefordshire, Credenhill included
Throughout HR postcodes, our teams that cover Credenhill — a rural village — work the nearby spots too, Stretton Sugwas and Sugwas Pool included. Fastest of all: give a HR4 7 postcode to the van.
There's no need to shift your car. Anywhere it sits — beside SAS Memorial Clocktower, on a layby heading to Roman Park, on a drive — that's where it gets drained. Guessing won't help at the back of Magnis, on a boundary, or somewhere awkward to describe; ring and ask.
Credenhill drivers: the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it waits, anywhere around Herefordshire.