How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Nottington
Keep the engine and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain and a thorough flush, done just where the car sits in Nottington, is usually all it needs when found before your engine runs. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Many modern diesels around Buckland Ripers, as well as Nottington, carry on two fluids; your engine takes just the diesel. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, and there spraying treats the fumes.
Different tanks, separate fillers. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think what filler it needs. The mistake grows in that gap between them.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Nottington: how it happens
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Hurry follows from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off Nottington Lane, or on the way home in the car park outside the pub in the village.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Third, the bottle goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as readily, and once the pour begins, no part halts it. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Nottington or out in Redlands.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Check these first, on a forecourt around Nottington or a driveway over in Radipole. Seconds, no more.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue ones are often blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally do not.
- On plenty of motors, size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Upwey? Ask the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, rather than once the light goes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
On the day the warning comes on — wherever it is in Dorset — a simple routine to follow.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — not rushing on the side of Nixon Road.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you've located the filler and read it.
- Both under a single flap? So confirm the cap on your diesel side is still shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Discover at the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Skip stage five entirely.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Nottington?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the motor. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels as soon as the ignition goes on — and so keep it off. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help roll the vehicle clear of the pump if you are at a forecourt — the BP, the Sainsbury's or anywhere else. If you are on your own drive around Nottington, leave the car where it is.
Where the motor has run by now, pull over somewhere safe and turn the vehicle off. The next exit means where to leave when you're on the M5, under 50 miles from Nottington. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Wells, under 50 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Nottington.
When our technicians turn up in Nottington, what takes place?
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside St Nicholas and St Laurence Church of England Primary School, near Redlands Community Sports Hub or on your own drive. What fluid went in, the quantity, and whether it ran: we ask since those replies set the work and quote. No one sets off before you have heard the quote over the phone.
Draining the tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the fuel system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more here than with petrol. After your filter is cleaned — or replaced, where needed — clean diesel goes in, and then the car is tested. The engine is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs smoothly, all before our engineers go.
If your engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. No money upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Nottington itself
Nottington is a small suburban area in Dorset, situated near the coast at an elevation of around 15 metres. Nottington lies close to nearby places such as Redlands, Coldharbour, and Broadwey, and is characterized by predominantly detached housing. Nottington is located approximately 118 miles from London and 40 miles from the nearest city, Wells. Nottington has a population of around 688 residents.
AdBlue drains about Nottington, and Dorset beyond
Nottington is a residential suburb, and the teams that cover it also work the places around it, Coldharbour and Broadwey among them, across the DT postcode area. Give a postcode that starts DT3 4, and the van arrives quickest.
The vehicle stays put. Anywhere it stands — beside St Nicholas, in a lay-by en route to Two Mile Coppice, at home — that is where it is emptied. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Broadwey Methodist Church.
For Nottington people, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave the car off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere across Dorset.