How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Great Stoke
Leave the engine and ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. In Great Stoke, finding it before the engine turns normally leaves a drain and a full flush on the spot. The rest of this page explains why it occurs and how to ensure it does not — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Many modern diesels in Winterbourne, like those in Great Stoke, carry on two liquids; your motor takes only your diesel. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, and there spraying cleans the fumes.
There's a filler for each tank. Many of vehicles have a single flap for the two, whereas others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, the diesel side gets filled constantly. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually goes in from a bottle, tipped by a driver who must stop and think which filler to use. The slip lives in that gap.
Great Stoke: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Haste comes from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off Oxbarton, or heading home in the car park at Baileys Court Inn.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — but a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That's the second factor: an unfamiliar car.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the pour after it has started. Stoke Gifford or the heart of Great Stoke: it takes the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these first, on a forecourt around Great Stoke or a drive over in Newleaze. Seconds, no more.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many vehicles carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler is if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Bristol Parkway? Check with whoever drove the vehicle last before leaving, not when the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — wherever it is in Gloucestershire — a simple routine to follow.
- Turn off after you park — flat ground, motor off, and never rushed by Gadshill Drive on the verge.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap works — once 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 — then leave the vehicle on.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Never go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Great Stoke?
Do not start the motor: that's where the short order of things begins. The fuel pump runs on many diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — and so leave it off. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the base rather than mixing — and that's where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Tesco, Sainsbury's or any other — the staff will normally help roll your car away, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway in Great Stoke.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. Great Stoke lies under a mile from the M4; there, use the first exit. A short hop across Great Stoke is a smaller job than a run towards Bristol, under 10 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
What occurs when we get there in Great Stoke
Wherever your car has stopped, be it by St Mary's Catholic Primary School, near Stoke Gifford Baptist Church or on your own drive, the van travels to it. Our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, since the replies settle this work and the price. On the phone call itself, you are told the quote — ahead of anything else.
Then the tank is drained and your system flushed thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and none of that washes out unaided. That is why it matters more. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Next our engineers start the engine and check it runs correctly before we go.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour after our technicians arrive, as long as your motor hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. No money in advance; you settle up on the day. At the end, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. It's worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Great Stoke, briefly
Great Stoke is a locality situated on the riverside in Gloucestershire, with an elevation of around 50 metres. Great Stoke lies close to the city of Bristol, approximately 5.4 miles away, and is near other local places such as Stoke Gifford and Bradley Stoke. Great Stoke has a population of around 3914 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing.
AdBlue drains around Great Stoke and across Gloucestershire
Bradley Stoke and Harry Stoke are among the towns near Great Stoke, a small village, that the same teams cover, throughout BS postcodes. A postcode starting BS34 8 gets the van to you fastest.
The vehicle does not need to move. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Trust Hall, a lay-by on the way to Meade Park, a driveway. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Poplar Rooms.
For Great Stoke drivers, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Leave the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Gloucestershire.