How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Lower Wraxall
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and your ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. Around Lower Wraxall, catching it before your motor runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. Nothing happened yet? Below, the page covers the why it takes place and the ways to prevent it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Not one fluid but two: that's what many newer diesels around Lower Wraxall and Woolley Green carry, with diesel feeding the engine. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, where a spray cleans the fumes.
Each tank has one filler of its own. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others have the two side by side under one flap. Diesel goes in on every forecourt visit, again and again. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less commonly, normally from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Lower Wraxall
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a driveway off Ivy Lane before work, or in the car park outside South Wraxall Club on the way home: that's where the hurried top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle tells you, and if it's empty, limp mode follows.
Then your car is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, once started, carries on. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Lower Wraxall or out in South Wraxall.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt in Lower Wraxall or a driveway over in Little Ashley. Seconds, no more.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually is not. Read it instead of going by position.
- On plenty of motors, the size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- A label inside your fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of vehicles. Check for it.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler is if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check when you collect a hire car or fleet car — at Bradford-On-Avon's car park, say — not once the light appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
The day the light comes on, anywhere in Wiltshire, follow this routine.
- Switch off after you park — flat ground, motor stopped, and never in a rush beside Churchfields on the verge.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, but it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Finish when that tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; until then, tip slowly using the own spout.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Discover during the second or third stage that the bottle went into the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Stage five is out.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Lower Wraxall already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your motor. Keep your ignition off too, because on plenty of diesels it alone runs your fuel pump. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help roll your car away from the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Murco, the Texaco or anywhere else. Your own driveway in Lower Wraxall is where it should stay.
When your engine has run by now, stop safely then turn the vehicle off. On the M4, under 10 miles from Lower Wraxall, that means the next junction. A short hop across Lower Wraxall is a smaller job than a run towards Bath, under 10 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
What takes place when our technicians arrive around Lower Wraxall
Anywhere your car came to rest, whether by Christ Church Church of England Controlled Primary School, beside South Wraxall Village Hall or at home, our van travels to it. Both the work and our quote depend on three replies — which fluid, which amount, and whether it has run — so our technicians ask. The quote comes over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Draining your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of your system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more here than with petrol. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Your engine is started next and tested to be sure it runs smoothly, all before we head off.
Unrun cars usually mean a half-hour visit from the moment we arrive. The kit is safe on a busy filling station, and quiet enough for a driveway late at night. No money in advance; you settle up on the day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to check yours.
About Lower Wraxall and where it is
Lower Wraxall is a small village in Wiltshire, situated inland at an elevation of 71 metres, approximately 5 miles from the city of Bath. Lower Wraxall has a population of around 501 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Lower Wraxall is surrounded by other nearby villages, including South Wraxall, Bradford Leigh, and Little Chalfield, and is about 91 miles west of London.
AdBlue drains about Lower Wraxall, and Wiltshire beyond
Lower Wraxall is a rural village, and our vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Bradford Leigh and Little Chalfield among them, across the BA postcode area. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting BA15 2.
No need to move the vehicle. We drain it where it is — a side street close to St. James, a lay-by on the way to Ford Copse, a driveway. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Great Chalfield Manor? Close to a county line? Checking beats guessing, and so phone.
For Lower Wraxall people, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, wherever in Wiltshire: keep it off and call 0333 366 0103.