AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Henstridge Ash: How It Occurs and How to Avoid It
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? In that case put this page aside a moment, leave the ignition and engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Henstridge Ash. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of current diesels on the roads around Henstridge Ash and Higher Marsh carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where a spray cleans the gas.
There is a filler on every tank. Many of cars have a single flap for the two, whereas others move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Filling your diesel side at the pump happens all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less frequently, normally from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. The error lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens in Henstridge Ash
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from your car, and letting it run out leads to limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Truman Terrace, perhaps at Bird in Hand on the way home after work.
Next, your hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old vehicle — since a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
Lastly, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in just as readily, and once the tip starts, no part halts it. Whether it happens in Henstridge or the middle of Henstridge Ash, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A few seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Yenston or a forecourt in Henstridge Ash.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many motors have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says which it lives if your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Templecombe, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Somerset that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Whitchurch Lane, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park and switch off properly.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- 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's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting your car, shut the cap and check a second time that the diesel cap never came off.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Leave out stage five entirely.
Henstridge Ash: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Brief order, then. Top of it: your motor stays unstarted. Keep your ignition off as well, since on many diesels switching it on alone runs your fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Murco, Valero or any other — the attendants will normally help push your car away, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around Henstridge Ash.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the engine has already run. The next exit means where to come off if you're on the M5, under 50 miles from Henstridge Ash. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Wells, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Henstridge Ash.
Our arrival around Henstridge Ash, and what happens next
Our van comes to the car anywhere it stopped — your own drive, near Henstridge Village Hall, or outside St Nicholas CofE Primary School, Henstridge. What liquid got in, the quantity, and if it ran: we ask since those replies set both work and price. No one heads out before you have had the price by phone.
Emptying that tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the fuel system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Once the filter is cleaned — or renewed, where required — clean diesel goes in, and then the car is tested. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
Unrun cars mostly need a half-hour job after arrival. The kit is fine on a live filling station, and quiet enough for a residential street after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It's worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Henstridge Ash itself
Henstridge Ash is a suburban area in the county of Somerset, situated inland at an elevation of 79 metres. Henstridge Ash lies near the villages of Henstridge and Whitchurch, and is approximately 19 miles from the city of Wells. Henstridge Ash has a population of around 1907 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
AdBlue drains across Somerset, Henstridge Ash included
Over BA postcodes, the vans covering Henstridge Ash — a residential suburb — work the surrounding places too, Towns End and Whitchurch among them. Give a postcode that starts BA8 0, and the van gets there quickest.
There's no need to move the vehicle. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near St Nicholas, a lay-by on the way to Oak Vale Wood, a drive. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Gartell Light Railway.
The short version for Henstridge Ash people
Read the cap before you pour. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it wherever it stands, wherever in Somerset: switch the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.