Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Highway: Why It Happens
Stop reading a minute when the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then call 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Highway. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds your motor — yet many newer diesels driven about Highway and West End carry a second liquid as well. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to clean it, from its own tank.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Plenty of cars share a single flap for the two, whereas some move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Filling the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Highway
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Hurry follows from the warning. The vehicle tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off Windsor Lane, or heading home in the car park outside Fleur de Lis.
New-to-you cars are next, too. Hire cars, new motors and company vehicles put their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in just as easily, and once the pour begins, nothing stops it. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Highway or out in West Stoke.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Montacute or a forecourt around Highway, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Read the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually aren't.
- On many motors, size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of cars say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows which it lives if the filler isn't next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Yeovil Pen Mill? Check with the person who drove the vehicle last before leaving, not once the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
For the day the light comes on — wherever you are in Somerset — a routine to use.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of High Street.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — after you've located your filler and read the cap.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the vehicle on.
- Stop once the tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; before that, tip slowly through the built-in spout.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Skip step five altogether.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Highway?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the motor. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the car on. Diluting it with extra diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of blending — and that is where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help roll your car clear of the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the BP, the Murco or anywhere else. At home around Highway? Then the car stays where it is.
Already started? Pull over when it is safe, then switch off. Highway lies under 15 miles from the M5; there, take the next junction. Distance counts — a quick hop across Highway is a smaller job than driving under 25 miles towards Wells — so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival in Highway, and what happens next
Outside Castle Primary School, near Hamdon Hill War Memorial or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our technicians come to it. Our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and if it's run, since those replies determine the work and our price. You get that quote by phone, before anybody sets off.
Emptying that tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the fuel system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that counts more here than with petrol. The filter flushed or, if needed, swapped; fresh diesel in; and then a check of your car. The motor is started next and checked to confirm it runs properly, all before our engineers leave.
If your engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house 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 checking your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Highway
Highway is a suburban area in Somerset, situated inland at an elevation of 62 metres, and is located near the towns of West Stoke, Stoke sub Hamdon, and East Stoke. Highway sits approximately 18 miles from the city of Wells and is around 119 miles west of London. Highway has a population of around 1375 people and is characterised by predominantly terraced housing.
Highway and Somerset: AdBlue drains across the area
Being a residential suburb, Highway shares its vans surrounding areas — Stoke sub Hamdon, East Stoke — all the way through TA postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. A postcode starting TA14 6 gets the van to you fastest.
The car doesn't need to move. Anywhere it stands — near Ham Hill, on a lay-by en route to Ham Hill Hillfort, at home — that's where it is emptied. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Ham Hill Hillfort? Close to a county line? Checking beats assuming, so phone.
The short version for Highway motorists
Before you tip, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave it off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it sits, anywhere across Somerset.