Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Ludlow: Why It Occurs
Keep the motor and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Normally, when your engine has not turned, it is emptied and thoroughly cleaned where your vehicle sits in Ludlow. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Many current diesels on the roads around Ludlow and Sheet carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the gas to clean it, from a separate tank.
Different tanks, different fillers. Under one flap, side by side: that's the layout on many vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled constantly. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less frequently. That gap is where the mistake lives.
Ludlow: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Haste comes from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off High Street, or heading home in the car park at Blood Bay.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Third, the spout fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in as easily, and once the pour begins, no part halts it. Whether it happens in Ludford or the middle of Ludlow, it is the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Lower Ledwyche or a forecourt around Ludlow, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally do not.
- Many cars fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on many motors. Check for it.
- The handbook says where it is if the filler is not next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- 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 outside the nearest station.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Anywhere around Shropshire the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of Broad Street.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, but it does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. When the two share a flap, make sure it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check a second time. 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. Never carry on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Ludlow?
Brief list, then. Top of that: your engine remains off. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the vehicle on. Thinning it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue settles to the base rather than blending — and that's where the fuel is pulled from.
The staff at Applegreen, another forecourt nearby or another forecourt will usually help to push the vehicle clear if asked. On your own drive in Ludlow? So your car remains where it is.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Come off the M54 — under 25 miles out of Ludlow — at the next exit. A short hop across Ludlow is a smaller job than a run towards Hereford, under 25 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
Ludlow: what happens when our technicians turn up
Outside St Laurence CofE Primary School, near Ludlow Museum or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our engineers come to it. Those replies determine the work and the price, so we ask what got in, about how much, and if it has run. You hear that price by phone, before anyone heads out.
Next: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes out unaided. Hence it matters more. After the filter is cleaned — or replaced, if required — fresh diesel is added, and then the vehicle is tested. Then our technicians fire it up and make sure it runs correctly before leaving.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour once we arrive, provided your motor hasn't run — and the pumps we use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Ludlow and where it is
Ludlow is a historic town situated on the River Teme in Shropshire, with a mix of old and new buildings, including many terraced houses. Ludlow sits at an elevation of 113 metres, surrounded by rolling countryside and nearby villages such as Ludford and Rockgreen. Ludlow is located approximately 21 miles from Hereford and 125 miles from London, making it a rural town with good transport links. Ludlow has a population of around 10,293 people, living in a range of housing types, predominantly terraced properties.
Ludlow and Shropshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Ludlow is a riverside town, and our vans that cover it also work the places near it, Rockgreen and Priors Halton among them, across the SY postcode area. Quote a postcode that starts SY8 1, and our van gets there quickest.
No need to move the car. Anywhere it sits — near The Conduit, on a layby heading to Jubilee Garden, at home — that's where it gets cleared. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of St Laurence's.
In short, for Ludlow motorists
Before you tip, read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it stands, anywhere in Shropshire: switch it off and phone 0333 366 0103.