Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Fivehead: Why It Occurs
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, done right where your car sits in Fivehead, is normally all it needs when found before your engine runs. Reading in advance? Then the rest covers why it happens and what to stop it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Plenty of modern diesels around Isle Abbotts, like those in Fivehead, carry on two liquids; your engine gets only your diesel. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to clean them, from its own tank.
There is a filler for each tank. Some motors put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others have the two together under one flap. Diesel gets filled at every forecourt call-out, again and again. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur in Fivehead?
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things coming up at once.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the car, and running dry means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Gange's Hill, perhaps at The Crown Inn on the way home that evening.
Then, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old car — since a rental car, a new car or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the pour once it has started. Whether it takes place in Lower Swell or the middle of Fivehead, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Isle Brewers or a forecourt in Fivehead, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally do not.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of cars carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says where it lives when your filler is not next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Taunton.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
The day the light goes on, wherever across Somerset, use this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Silver Street.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- Both behind one flap? Then make sure the cap on your diesel side is still closed ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then look again — making sure your diesel filler remained closed the whole time. After that, start the vehicle.
Discover at the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Never carry on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Fivehead?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting your motor. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the car on. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it is the BP or the Q8, ask the staff to help roll the vehicle away from the petrol pump. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Fivehead.
Already run? Stop once it is sensible, then turn off. On the M5, under 10 miles from Fivehead, that means the next junction. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Fivehead is a smaller job than driving under 25 miles towards Wells — so say roughly how far it went.
Fivehead: what happens when our engineers get there
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Curry Mallet Church of England Primary School, near Church of St Martin or on your own driveway. Those replies settle the work and our quote, so our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and whether it has run. That price is given over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Then that tank is emptied and your system cleaned thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. The engine is started next and tested to be sure it runs correctly, all before we go.
If your motor has not run, most 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 after dark. Your insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once the job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Fivehead itself
Fivehead is a small village in inland Somerset, situated near the villages of Lower Swell and Upper Fivehead. Fivehead sits at an elevation of around 46 metres, approximately 18 miles from the city of Wells. Fivehead has a population of around 609 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Fivehead is located in the South West region of England, about 126 miles west of London.
AdBlue drains across Somerset, Fivehead included
Throughout TA postcodes, the teams that cover Fivehead — a rural village — work the nearby locations too, Swell and Upper Fivehead among them. Give a postcode that starts TA3 6, and the van gets there fastest.
Your car remains where it is. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Fivehead Baptist Church, a lay-by on the way to Queen's Jubilee Wood, a driveway. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Fivehead Village Hall, ring and ask instead of guessing.
In short, for Fivehead motorists
Before you tip, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere around Somerset, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — and so leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.