Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Firepool: Why It Happens
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and the ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Around Firepool, catching it before the engine turns normally leaves a drain and a full flush on the spot. Here in advance? Then the rest covers how it happens and how to prevent it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Diesel goes to the engine — yet many newer diesels driven around Firepool and Lyngford carry another fluid as well. Its own tank holds it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where spraying cleans the fumes.
Each tank has its own filler. Some vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place the two side by side behind one flap. Diesel goes in on each forecourt visit, again and again. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs around Firepool
It's seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from your car, and running out leads to limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Priory Park, or outside The Ale House on the way home that evening.
Then the vehicle is new. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Third, the bottle goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in just as readily, and once the pour begins, nothing stops it. Obridge or the heart of Firepool: it takes the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Firepool forecourt or a drive over in Priorswood, spend a few seconds over these before anything goes in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually isn't. Read it rather than going by position.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on many vehicles. Look for it.
- The handbook says where it is if your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check when you pick up a rental or company car — at Taunton's car park, perhaps — not when the light appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
For the day the light appears — anywhere it is in Somerset — a simple routine to use.
- Pull in on level, motor off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of Winters Field.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, yes, but it works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both sit under a flap, confirm it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when 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.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? So stop just there. Never go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Firepool?
Brief list, then. First: the engine remains unstarted. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the car on. Filling up with diesel won't weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of the tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — Asda Express, Morrisons or any other — the attendants will normally help roll the car away, if you ask. If you are on your own drive around Firepool, leave it where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. Firepool sits under 3 miles from the M5; there, take the first junction. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Wells, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Firepool.
Our arrival around Firepool, and what happens next
Our van comes to the car wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside Christadelphian Hall, or outside St James Church School. What liquid was put in, the quantity, and if it ran: our engineers ask since those answers decide the work and quote. That price is given on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Draining your tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and none of it clears out unaided. Hence it counts more. A test is at the end: before that, clean diesel is added, and the fuel filter is cleaned or changed as needed. We do not leave until it has been started and is running correctly.
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 working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. No money in advance; you settle up on the day. At the end, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Firepool, for a moment
Firepool is a suburban area located on the riverside in Somerset, with a relatively low elevation of 19 metres. Firepool sits near several other local places, including Obridge, North Town, and Rowbarton, and is approximately 23 miles from the city of Wells. Firepool is characterized by a high proportion of flat housing, which is typical of many suburban areas in the South West region. Firepool is also within commuting distance of larger cities, being around 133 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Somerset, Firepool included
As a residential suburb, Firepool shares its vans nearby places — North Town, Rowbarton — right through TA postcodes and the wider area around them. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting TA1 1.
Moving the car isn't needed. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Somerset Cricket Museum, a lay-by on the way to Children's Wood, a drive. Assuming won't help at the back of @2K Theatre, close to a border, or somewhere hard to pin down; ring and check.
Firepool drivers: the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Keep it off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, throughout Somerset.