How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Milborne Port
Keep your motor and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before your motor runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Milborne Port. Not happened yet? Below, the page covers the why it takes place and the ways to prevent it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads about Milborne Port and Purse Caundle carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where a spray treats the fumes.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, side by side: that's the arrangement on a lot of vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up your diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. Far less commonly, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. The mistake grows in the gap between the two.
Milborne Port: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things lining up at once.
Hurry follows from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off High Street, or heading home in the car park at Tippling Philosopher.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after started, keeps on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Milborne Port or out in Kingsbury Regis.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Whether a Milborne Port forecourt or a drive over in Milborne Wick, take a couple of seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally do not.
- The size. On plenty of motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows which it is if the filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Sherborne? Check with the person who drove the vehicle last before leaving, not once the light goes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — wherever it is around Somerset — a simple routine to use.
- Switch off once parked — level ground, motor stopped, and not in a rush beside London Road on the verge.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you have found the filler and read it.
- Both behind a single flap? So make sure the lid on the diesel filler stays closed before raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Stage five is out.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Milborne Port?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the engine. Leave your ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels switching it on alone runs your fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the attendants to help roll your car clear of the pump if you are at a forecourt — the Valero, the BP or somewhere else. If you're on your own drive in Milborne Port, leave the car where it stands.
Already run? Pull over once it's safe, then switch off. Leave the M5 — under 25 miles out of Milborne Port — at the first exit. A short hop across Milborne Port is a smaller job than a run towards Wells, under 25 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we arrive around Milborne Port, what happens?
Our van reaches the car wherever it stopped — your own drive, near Milborne Port Library, or by Milborne Port Primary School. Both the work and our quote depend on three answers — what fluid, what quantity, and if it's run — so we ask. During the phone call itself, you are told the quote — before anything else.
Your system is then rinsed thoroughly, once the tank is drained. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. After the filter is flushed — or renewed, if needed — clean diesel goes in, and finally the vehicle is tested. The engine is started next and tested to confirm it runs smoothly, all before our technicians head off.
Unstarted vehicles mostly mean a half-hour visit from arrival. The equipment is safe on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. Nothing upfront; you settle up on the day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. It is worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Milborne Port itself
Milborne Port is a village situated in the South West of England, on the banks of a river in Somerset. Milborne Port sits at an elevation of 84 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Milborne Port is located near several other small settlements, including Kingsbury Regis, New Town, and Goathill, and is approximately 18.6 miles from the city of Wells. Milborne Port has a population of around 1434 residents.
AdBlue drains around Milborne Port, and Somerset beyond
Milborne Port is a village, and our teams that cover it also work the places around it, New Town and Goathill among them, across the DT postcode area. A postcode starting DT9 5 gets the van to you fastest.
Moving your car is not necessary. The drain takes place on the spot, be it a drive, a street near Cross House, or a lay-by on the way to The Grove. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of St John the Evangelist, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Milborne Port motorists: the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it stands, anywhere around Somerset: keep it off and ring 0333 366 0103.