How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Hartlebury
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Usually, when your motor has not turned, it's drained and fully purged where the car sits in Hartlebury. Not happened yet? Below, the rest of the page covers the reasons it takes place and the ways to avoid it altogether.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads round Hartlebury and Chadwick carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas and cleans it.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Some cars keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have the two together behind one flap. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up constantly. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. The slip lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens around Hartlebury
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a drive off Inn Lane before work, or in the car park outside The Tap House heading home: that's where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and once it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part stops the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Hartlebury or out in Waresley.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Hartlebury forecourt or a drive over in Podmoor, spend a few seconds over these before anything goes in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it instead of going by position.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on many motors. Check for it.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside the nearest station, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
For the day the warning comes on — anywhere you are around Worcestershire — a simple routine to use.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of Station Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, yes, but it does the trick.
- Both behind one flap? So make sure the cap on your diesel side is still closed ahead of raising the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Do not go on to step five.
Hartlebury: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting the motor. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the car on. Diluting it with more diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the base instead of blending — and that's where your fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Esso, Tesco or any other — the attendants will normally help push the vehicle clear, when you ask. Your own driveway around Hartlebury is where it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. The next exit means where to come off when you're on the M5, under 10 miles from Hartlebury. Mileage counts — a quick hop across Hartlebury is a smaller job than heading under 10 miles towards Worcester — so say roughly how far it went.
Our arrival around Hartlebury, and what occurs next
Our van comes to the vehicle wherever it stopped — your own driveway, beside St. James, or outside Hartlebury CofE Primary School. Both the work and our quote rest on three replies — what liquid, what quantity, and if it has run — so our engineers ask. You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off.
Draining your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. A test comes at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is cleaned or changed if necessary. Then our engineers fire it up and confirm it runs properly before we leave.
If the engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. No money in advance; you settle up on the day. At the end, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Hartlebury, for a moment
Hartlebury is a village in Worcestershire, situated on the banks of the River Severn at an elevation of 66 metres. Hartlebury lies approximately 9.8 miles south of Worcester and 106.2 miles west of London, with nearby villages including Waresley, Charlton, and Torton. Hartlebury is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock and a population of around 830 residents. Hartlebury's riverside setting contributes to its scenic environment.
AdBlue drains across Worcestershire, Hartlebury included
Hartlebury is a village, and the teams that cover it also work the towns near it, Charlton and Torton among them, across the DY postcode area. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting DY11 7.
No need to move the vehicle. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Chilbrook Coppice, a side street near Hartlebury Parish Hall: our engineers drain the car where it stands. Guessing doesn't help at the back of Worcestershire County Museum, on a boundary, or anywhere hard to describe; phone and check.
For Hartlebury people, the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Worcestershire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — and so leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103.