High Nash: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and your ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. Normally, when the engine hasn't run, it's drained and fully cleaned where the vehicle is around High Nash. Here in advance? In that case the rest covers how it comes about and what to prevent it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads round High Nash and Palmers Flat carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, where a spray treats the gas.
Different tanks, separate fillers. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Topping up your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. Much less commonly, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
High Nash: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
It's seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from your car, and letting it run out leads to limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Sylvan Close, or outside Old White Hart Inn on the way home that evening.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once begun, keeps on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of High Nash or out in Coleford.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
A few seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Milkwall or a forecourt around High Nash.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The previous driver will know. Ask as you collect a hire car or company car — from Lydney's car park, say — not once the warning appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
The day the light goes on, anywhere across Gloucestershire, use this routine.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of Old Station Way.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- Both behind one flap? So make sure the cap on your diesel side is still closed before raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Spot at stage two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? Then stop right there. Leave out stage five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around High Nash?
Short list, then. Top of that: your engine remains off. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the car on. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
Ask the staff to help roll your car away from the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the Texaco, the Central Garage or somewhere else. On your own drive around High Nash? So your car stays put.
Where your motor has been run by now, pull over safely and turn the car off. Come off the M50 — under 10 miles out of High Nash — at the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across High Nash is smaller work than a run of under 25 miles to Gloucester, so say.
When our engineers turn up around High Nash, what takes place?
Our van comes to your car wherever it has come to rest — your own drive, near St Margaret Mary, or by Coalway Primary School. The answers settle this work and our quote, and so our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it's run. The quote comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
The system is then purged thoroughly, after the tank is cleared. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. The motor is started next and tested to be sure it runs properly, all before we leave.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour after we get there, provided the engine hasn't run — and the pumps we use are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet at night beside a house. Nothing upfront; you settle up that day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. It is worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About High Nash and where it is
High Nash is a suburban area in Gloucestershire, situated inland at an elevation of 191 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. High Nash lies near the towns of Coleford and the villages of Poolway and Coalway, and is approximately 16.5 miles from Gloucester. High Nash is part of a larger residential area that has developed in the region, with easy access to nearby cities and towns. High Nash has a population of around 2649 people, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains about High Nash, and Gloucestershire beyond
As a residential suburb, High Nash has the same vans as nearby places — Poolway, Coalway — right across GL postcodes and the surrounding area around them. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting GL16 8.
No need to move the car. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Wildlife Area, a side street close to The Main Place: we drain the vehicle where it sits. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Coleford Library.
High Nash motorists: the short version
Always, the cap; after that, the tip. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it stands, anywhere around Gloucestershire.