How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Double View
Stop reading a minute when the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, carried out just where the vehicle stands in Double View, is normally what it takes when found before your engine runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds your engine — yet many current diesels driven round Double View and Littledean carry another liquid too. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, and there a spray cleans the gas.
Each tank has one filler of its own. Other cars keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have both side by side under one flap. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. The mistake grows in the gap between the two.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Double View
Carelessness seldom causes it. What does is three things coming up together.
On a drive off Mousell Lane before work, or in the car park outside Mount Pleasant heading home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low the vehicle warns you, and once it's gone, limp mode kicks in.
Unfamiliar vehicles come next, too. Rentals, new cars and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and the hand reaches for the cap it 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 pour, once begun, carries on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Double View or out in Mount Pleasant.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Whether a Double View forecourt or a driveway over in Collafield, spend a couple of seconds on these before anything goes in.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the filler flap and look for a label — plenty of vehicles show what goes in which filler just there.
- The handbook says where it is if the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Lydney, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Wherever around Gloucestershire the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Woodville Road, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park then switch off properly.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you have located the filler and read it.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the car on.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Double View already?
Short order, then. First: your engine stays off. Keep the ignition off as well, since on many diesels it alone runs the fuel pump. Diluting it with more diesel won't work, because AdBlue settles to the base instead of blending — and that is where your fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — EG on the move, Shire Fuels or another — the attendants will normally help push the vehicle away, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive around Double View.
Already started? Pull over once it's safe, then switch off. The next junction is where to leave when you're on the M50, under 10 miles from Double View. A short hop across Double View is a smaller job than a run towards Gloucester, under 15 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival in Double View, and what happens next
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Forest View Primary School, close to Our Lady of Victories or on your own drive. Those replies settle the work and our price, and so our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it's run. The price comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the entire system. Much more than with petrol, it matters here: the crystals form, certain metals corrode, and none of it washes out on its own, no matter how long it is left. Filter flushed or, if needed, replaced; fresh diesel in; and then a check of your car. Next our technicians start it and check it runs correctly before we leave.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor hasn't run need roughly half an hour once our technicians arrive. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours once the job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Double View, for a moment
Double View is a suburban area in Gloucestershire, situated inland at an elevation of 244 metres, approximately 10.9 miles from Gloucester. Double View is characterized by its semi-detached housing and is located near other residential areas such as Mount Pleasant and Littledean Hill. Double View sits within the wider landscape of the South West region, with the city of Gloucester and the Forest of Dean nearby. Double View has a population of around 3927 residents.
AdBlue drains across Gloucestershire, Double View included
Being a residential suburb, Double View has the same vans as surrounding places — Littledean Hill, Cinderford — right across GL postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Quote a postcode that starts GL14 2, and our van arrives quickest.
The car doesn't need to move. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near St Stephen's Church, a lay-by on the way to Miners Welfare Playing Field, a drive. Awkward to pin down, like the back of Cinderford Library? Close to a border? Checking beats guessing, and so phone.
In short, for Double View motorists
First, the cap; then, the tip. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere across Gloucestershire.