Hook Street: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? In that case set this page aside for now, keep your ignition and engine off, then phone 0333 366 0103. Usually, if your motor hasn't turned, it is drained and thoroughly flushed where your vehicle is around Hook Street. The remainder of this page covers why it happens and how to make sure it does not — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
No single liquid but two: that's how plenty of newer diesels near Hook Street and Abwell carry, with diesel feeding the engine. Its own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, and there a spray treats the fumes.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in at every forecourt call-out, week in, week out. Seldom filled, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, tipped by a driver who has to stop and think which cap to use. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen in Hook Street?
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things coming up together.
Hurry follows from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off Bevans Hill, or heading home in the car park outside Boars Head Inn.
Unfamiliar motors are second, as well. Rentals, new vehicles and company vehicles put their fillers differently, and the hand goes for the cap used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip after it has started. It's seconds, whether in Lynch or bang in the heart of Hook Street.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Check these first, at a forecourt in Hook Street or a driveway out in Ham. A few seconds, no more.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue ones are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually are not.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Look inside the fuel flap: many motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by the diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Lydney.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
For the day the light comes on — wherever you are across Gloucestershire — a routine to follow.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of Oakhunger Lane.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, but it works.
- The two under a single flap? So make sure the cap on your diesel filler stays shut before raising the bottle.
- Stop when the tank fills or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip slowly through the own spout.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Step five stays out.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Hook Street?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your engine. Keep the ignition off too, since on many diesels switching it on alone runs the fuel pump. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the base instead of mixing — and that's where your fuel is pulled from.
The staff at Sea Fuels, Stone Garage or another forecourt will usually help pushing the car clear if asked. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive around Hook Street.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Hook Street lies under 5 miles from the M5; there, use the first junction. A short hop across Hook Street is a smaller job than a run towards Gloucester, under 25 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our technicians arrive around Hook Street, what takes place?
Anywhere the vehicle came to rest, be it outside Berkeley Primary School, near Berkeley Evangelical Church or at home, the van comes to it. Both the work and our price depend on three answers — which liquid, which amount, and whether it's run — so our engineers ask. You get that price by phone, before anybody heads out.
Emptying your tank comes next, followed by 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. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Your engine is fired up next and checked to make sure it runs smoothly, all before we head off.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after our technicians get there, as long as your engine has not run — and the pumps we use are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet after dark beside a house. Nothing upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Hook Street, briefly
Hook Street is a small village in Gloucestershire, situated near the coast in the South West region of England. Hook Street sits at a low elevation of around 15 metres, close to the nearby places of Lynch, Oakhunger, and Berkeley. Hook Street has a population of approximately 621 residents, with a predominance of semi-detached housing. Hook Street is located near the city of Gloucester, which is about 15 miles away.
AdBlue drains about Hook Street, and Gloucestershire beyond
Oakhunger and Berkeley are among the places around Hook Street, a coastal village, that the same vans cover, throughout GL postcodes. A postcode starting GL13 9 gets our van to you fastest.
The car doesn't need to move. Wherever it sits — near Berkeley Books, in a lay-by en route to Westfield Brake, on a drive — that is where it is emptied. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Berkeley Town Hall.
In short, for Hook Street drivers
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it waits, anywhere across Gloucestershire.