Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Kingswood: Why It Happens
Pause here a minute if the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then call 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Kingswood. The rest of this page explains why it occurs and how to ensure it does not — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel goes to your motor — yet plenty of modern diesels driven around Kingswood and Wortley hold a second fluid too. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, where spraying cleans the fumes.
There is a filler for each tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the arrangement on many cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. That gap is where the mistake lives.
Kingswood: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from your car, and letting it run out means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off High Street, perhaps at The Village Inn on the way home after work.
Then, your hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old motor — since a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
No part halts the tip after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Kingswood or out in Bradley Green.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Little Bristol or a forecourt in Kingswood, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Read the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally aren't.
- Plenty of vehicles give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of motors carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by the diesel cap, it is in your 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 — if you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Cam & Dursley.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
For the day the light appears — anywhere you are in Gloucestershire — a simple routine to follow.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Old Rectory Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Step five is off limits.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Kingswood?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your engine. Do not switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of that tank, just where fuel is taken from.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it is the Shell or the Gulf, ask the attendants to help roll your car clear of the pump. If you're on your own driveway in Kingswood, leave it where it is.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next exit means where to leave when you are on the M5, under 5 miles from Kingswood. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Kingswood is smaller a job than a run of under 25 miles towards Bristol, and so tell us.
When our technicians arrive around Kingswood, what takes place?
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Kingswood Primary School, near St Mary's Church or on your own drive. Our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, because the answers decide the work and the price. No one heads out until you have had our price over the phone.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the entire 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 doesn't wash out on its own. After your filter is cleaned — or replaced, where needed — fresh diesel is added, and then your vehicle gets tested. Before leaving, our engineers fire it up and confirm that it is running correctly.
Unrun vehicles mostly need a half-hour visit after arrival. The equipment is safe on a live filling station, and quiet enough for a driveway after dark. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and a 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 Kingswood, for a moment
Kingswood is a village in Gloucestershire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 54 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Kingswood lies near the towns of Wotton-under-Edge and Bradley, and is approximately 15.5 miles from Bristol. Kingswood has a population of around 1409 residents, and is located in a scenic area of the South West region. Kingswood is also within commuting distance of major cities, being around 96.5 miles from London.
Kingswood and Gloucestershire: AdBlue drains across the area
Kingswood is a village, and our teams that cover it also work the places near it, Wotton-under-Edge and Bradley among them, across the GL postcode area. A postcode starting GL12 8 gets our van to you fastest.
Moving the vehicle isn't needed. Anywhere it sits — near Kingswood Village Hall, on a lay-by en route to Wotton Community PARC, at home — that's where it gets cleared. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Kingswood Congregational Church.
For Kingswood drivers, the short version
First, the cap; after that, the tip. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it where it is, anywhere around Gloucestershire: keep it off then call 0333 366 0103.