Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Curry Rivel
Pause reading a minute when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Curry Rivel. Reading before the event? Then the rest covers why it happens and what to prevent it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels around Whitecross, as well as Curry Rivel, carry on two liquids; your motor takes just the diesel. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to fresh it, from its own tank.
Each tank comes with a filler of its own. Plenty of motors have a single flap for the two, while some put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up constantly. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less frequently, usually from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. Mistakes happen in that gap between them.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place in Curry Rivel?
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Church Street before work, or in the car park at The Firehouse on the way home.
Then the vehicle is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, after begun, carries on. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Curry Rivel or out in Wiltown.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Whether a Curry Rivel forecourt or a drive over in Wick, spend a couple of seconds on these before anything goes in.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally are not.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Check for it.
- Cannot find it beside your diesel filler? Then look beneath the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook says which.
- The previous driver knows. Check as you collect a rental or company car — at Bridgwater's car park, perhaps — rather than once the warning comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
Wherever in Somerset the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time to spare — not rushing on the side of Hillside Close.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — after you've found your filler and read the cap.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two share a flap, confirm it's shut before the bottle comes up.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the vehicle, close the cap and look again that the diesel cap was never came off.
Find at stage two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop right there. Don't go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Curry Rivel already?
Brief list, then. First: your motor remains unstarted. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition goes on — so leave it off. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it's the BP or the Esso, ask the attendants to help roll the vehicle away from the petrol pump. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive around Curry Rivel.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. On the M5, under 10 miles from Curry Rivel, that means the next exit. A short hop across Curry Rivel is a smaller job than a run towards Wells, under 25 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we turn up around Curry Rivel, what occurs?
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Curry Rivel Church of England VC Primary School, near Robert Sewers Hall or on your own drive. The replies decide this work and our price, so our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and if it's run. On the call itself, you are told our quote — ahead of dispatch.
Then your tank is emptied and your system rinsed thoroughly. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and none of it washes out by itself. Hence it matters more. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Next our technicians fire it up and confirm it runs correctly before we leave.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once our engineers arrive, as long as the motor hasn't 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 plenty of insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Curry Rivel itself
Curry Rivel is a village situated on the banks of the River Parrett in Somerset, with a mix of old and new buildings, including many detached homes. Curry Rivel has a population of around 1019 people and is located near other small settlements like Wiltown and Heale. Curry Rivel sits at an elevation of 49 metres, close to the Somerset Levels, and is about 16 miles from the city of Wells. Curry Rivel is also within a reasonable distance of larger cities, being around 123 miles from London.
Curry Rivel and Somerset: AdBlue drains across the area
Heale and Drayton are among the places near Curry Rivel, a village, that the same vans cover, throughout TA postcodes. Quote a postcode that starts TA10 0, and the van gets there fastest.
The car stays put. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to The Green, a side street close to War Memorial: we drain the vehicle where it sits. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of St Andrews.
Curry Rivel drivers: the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep the vehicle switched off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, throughout Somerset.