High Orchard: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then put this page down a moment, keep the ignition and motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, done just where the car stands around High Orchard, is normally what it needs if found before the motor runs. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page covers the reasons it happens and the ways to avoid it altogether.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Diesel goes to your engine — yet plenty of modern diesels seen round High Orchard and Pool Meadow carry another fluid as well. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There is a filler on each tank. Many of vehicles share a single flap for both, whereas others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in on every forecourt call-out, again and again. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. That gap is where the mistake lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in High Orchard: how it takes place
Carelessness rarely causes it. Instead is three things coming up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off High Orchard Street before work, or in the car park at Coal Kitchen on the way home.
Unfamiliar vehicles come next, as well. Hire cars, new vehicles and company motors place their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
A spouted bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, once begun, carries on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of High Orchard or out in St Pauls.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these first, on a forecourt in High Orchard or a drive out in Linden. A few seconds, no more.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally don't.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Open the flap and check for a label — plenty of motors show which belongs in each inlet right there.
- The handbook shows which it lives if the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask as you pick up a hire car or company car — from Gloucester's car park, perhaps — rather than when the light appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
On the day the light comes on — wherever you are in Gloucestershire — a routine to follow.
- Turn off after you park — flat ground, engine off, and not rushed beside Merchants Road on the verge.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It works.
- The diesel cap remains on. When both share a flap, confirm it's closed before lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and check a second time that the diesel cap never opened off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Stage five is out.
High Orchard: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Brief list, then. Top of it: the motor remains unstarted. Do not switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Don't 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.
The staff at Sainsbury's, Texaco or any forecourt will usually lend a hand to push the car clear when asked. Your own driveway in High Orchard is the place it should stay.
Already started? Pull over once it's safe, then turn off. Come off the M5 — under 3 miles out of High Orchard — at the first junction. Mileage counts — a short hop across High Orchard makes a smaller job than heading under a mile towards Gloucester — so tell us roughly how far it went.
What takes place when our technicians turn up in High Orchard
Outside St Paul's Church of England Primary School, close to Cineworld or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, we come to it. Those answers decide this work and the price, so our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run. That price is given on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Next: draining, then a thorough flush of the entire system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither clears out unaided. That is why it matters more. Filter cleaned or, if it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; then a check of your vehicle. The motor is fired up next and checked to make sure it runs properly, all before our technicians head off.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the engine has not run need roughly half an hour once our technicians arrive. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies — and so use the wait to check yours.
About High Orchard, briefly
High Orchard is a suburban area located on the riverside in Gloucestershire, with a low elevation of around 16 metres. High Orchard sits close to the city of Gloucester, being only 0.4 miles away, and is near other places such as St Pauls and The Island. High Orchard has a population of approximately 4987 people and predominantly consists of flat-type housing.
AdBlue drains across Gloucestershire, High Orchard included
As a residential suburb, High Orchard has the same vans as nearby areas — Gloucester, The Island — all the way across GL postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting GL1 5.
Shifting your car isn't needed. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Marks & Spencer, a lay-by on the way to Brunswick Square, a driveway. Awkward to explain, like the back of Gloucester Waterways Museum? Close to a border? Asking beats guessing, so phone.
The short version for High Orchard drivers
Tip no AdBlue until you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it waits, anywhere around Gloucestershire.