AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Easterton: Why It Happens and How to Stop It
Pause reading for a moment when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, carried out right where your vehicle sits around Easterton, is usually what it takes if found before the motor runs. Here in advance? In that case the rest explains how it happens and what to prevent it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds the engine — but plenty of modern diesels driven around Easterton and Lavington Sands carry a second fluid as well. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Separate tanks, different fillers. 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. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. Seldom topped up, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, poured by a driver who has to stop and think what filler to use. It is in that gap that the error lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs in Easterton
Carelessness seldom causes it. What does is three things lining up at once.
Haste follows from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a driveway off Strawberry Fields, or heading home in the car park at Royal Oak.
New-to-you vehicles come next, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company motors put their fillers differently, and habit goes for the cap used on the old one.
A spouted bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, once started, carries on. Whether it occurs in Eastcott or the middle of Easterton, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Whether a Easterton forecourt or a drive out in Northbrook, spend a couple of seconds over these before any is poured in.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside the fuel flap: plenty of motors have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says which it is when your filler is not next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Pewsey.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
When the light goes on, anywhere around Wiltshire, follow this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of High Street.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It seems daft. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Don't go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Easterton?
Don't start your motor: that's where the short order of things starts. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the car on. 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 sucked from.
Ask the staff to help roll your car clear of the petrol pump if you're on a forecourt — the Esso, the Murco or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around Easterton.
Already run? Stop once it's safe, then turn off. Come off the M4 — under 25 miles out of Easterton — at the first exit. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Easterton is a smaller job than heading under 25 miles to Salisbury — so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we turn up in Easterton, what happens?
Our van reaches the car anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, near St Barnabas, or by St Barnabas Church of England School, Market Lavington. Both the work and the price depend on three replies — which liquid, which amount, and if it has run — so our technicians ask. On the call itself, you hear the quote — ahead of dispatch.
Draining your tank comes next, then a full flush of your system. More than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: the crystals form, some metals are attacked, and none of it washes away unaided, however long it is left. After the fuel filter is flushed — or replaced, if needed — clean diesel is added, and finally your vehicle gets tested. Before we go, we fire it up and make sure that it is running smoothly.
If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. It is worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Easterton, briefly
Easterton is a small village in Wiltshire, situated inland at an elevation of 97 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Easterton lies approximately 17 miles from Salisbury and 80 miles from London, making it a rural community with easy access to larger cities. Easterton is surrounded by nearby places such as Eastcott, Fiddington Sands, and Easterton Sands, which are all part of the local landscape. Easterton has a population of around 580 people, giving it a quiet and peaceful atmosphere.
AdBlue drains across Wiltshire, Easterton included
Over SN postcodes, our teams that cover Easterton — a rural village — work the surrounding locations too, Easterton Sands and Fiddington Sands among them. Fastest of all: quote a SN10 4 postcode to the van.
Your car does not need to move. Wherever it stands — beside Easterton Village Hall, in a layby heading to Elisha Field, at home — that's where it gets cleared. Assuming won't help behind 1st Lavington Sea Scouts, close to a boundary, or anywhere awkward to describe; phone and check.
For Easterton people, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep it switched off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across Wiltshire.