Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Laughern Hill
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then set this page aside for now, keep your ignition and motor off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Around Laughern Hill, catching it before your motor turns usually leaves a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. Reading before the event? In that case the rest explains how it happens and how to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels in Cobblers Corner, like those in Laughern Hill, carry on two liquids; your engine gets just your diesel. Its own tank holds it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where a spray treats the fumes.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Many of motors share a single flap for the two, whereas some move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. The mistake grows in the gap between the two.
Laughern Hill: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
It's seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Haste follows from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a drive off Ankerdine Road, or heading home in the car park at The Mason's Arms.
Next, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old vehicle — because a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not.
Nothing stops the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Laughern Hill or out in Castle Hill.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Newtown or a forecourt in Laughern Hill, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Position can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue ones are often blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally do not.
- On many cars, size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on many cars. Check for it.
- The handbook shows which it lives when the filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Worcester Foregate Street.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
Wherever across Worcestershire the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Turn off once parked — flat ground, motor off, and never in a rush beside Hopehouse Lane on the verge.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, yet it works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Finish once the tank fills or the bottle is empty; before that, pour slowly using its own spout.
- Close the cap and check again. 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 your diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to step five.
Laughern Hill: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Short list, then. First: your engine remains unstarted. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch it on. Diluting it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom rather than mixing — and that's where your fuel is pulled from.
Ask the attendants to help roll your car clear of the petrol pump if you're at a forecourt — the Gulf, the Texaco or somewhere else. At home in Laughern Hill? Then the car stays where it is.
Already started? Stop when it's safe, then switch off. Laughern Hill lies under 10 miles from the M5; there, take the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Laughern Hill is less work than a trip of under 10 miles towards Worcester, so say.
What takes place when we turn up around Laughern Hill
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Martley CofE Primary School, close to St Laurence or on your own driveway. Both the work and the price rest on three replies — what fluid, which amount, and if it's run — so we ask. You get that price on the phone, before anyone sets off.
Next: draining, then a full flush of the whole system. With AdBlue that matters 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. A test comes at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the filter is cleaned or replaced as needed. We do not go until it has been started and is running smoothly.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where your motor has not run take about half an hour after we arrive. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, take a look at your policy; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Laughern Hill, for a moment
Laughern Hill is a locality in Worcestershire, situated on the riverside near Worcester, with a mix of detached housing and open spaces. Laughern Hill has a relatively low elevation of 48 metres, and its proximity to the city of Worcester makes it a desirable residential area. Laughern Hill is close to other nearby places such as Castle Hill, Wants Green, and Willow Green, and is about 106 miles west of London.
AdBlue drains across Worcestershire, Laughern Hill included
Laughern Hill is a small village, and the vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Wants Green and Willow Green among them, across the WR postcode area. Quote a postcode that starts WR6 6, and the van arrives quickest.
Your car stays put. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street close to Wichenford Memorial Hall, a lay-by on the way to Wyat's Coppice, a drive. Awkward to explain, like the back of St Peter? By a county line? Checking is better than guessing, so phone.
The short version for Laughern Hill motorists
First, the cap; then, the tip. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep the car off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, throughout Worcestershire.