Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Paulton
Keep the motor and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Caught before your engine runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Paulton. The rest of this page explains why it happens and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds the engine — yet many current diesels driven about Paulton and Hallatrow carry another liquid too. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Different tanks, different fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the layout on many vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less commonly. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Paulton
It's hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a driveway off Church Street before work, or in the car park at The Red Lion heading home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car warns you, and once it's gone, limp mode kicks in.
New-to-you cars come next, too. Rentals, new motors and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and the hand goes for the cap it used on the old one.
No part stops the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Brittens or the middle of Paulton: it takes the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Whether a Paulton forecourt or a driveway over in Monger, take a few seconds on these before anything goes in.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of cars show which goes in which inlet right there.
- The handbook says where it lives if your filler isn't next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Oldfield Park? Check with the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, not once the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
Wherever around Somerset the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Not in a rush on the side of High Street, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, confirm it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Finish when the tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; before that, tip slowly using its own spout.
- Close the cap, then check once more — making sure the diesel filler remained shut the whole time. After that, start the vehicle.
Find at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? Then stop just there. Skip step five altogether.
Paulton: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Short order, then. Top of that: your motor stays unstarted. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch it on. Diluting it with extra diesel won't work, since AdBlue settles to the base rather than mixing — and that's where your fuel is pulled from.
Ask the staff to help push your car clear of the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the Murco, the Murco Fual or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Paulton.
Where the motor has run by now, stop safely and switch the vehicle off. The next junction is the place to come off if you're on the M32, under 15 miles from Paulton. Mileage counts — a short hop across Paulton makes a smaller job than heading under 10 miles to Bath — so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we arrive in Paulton, what occurs?
Our technicians come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Paulton Infant School, close to Royal British Legion or on your own driveway. The replies settle this work and our quote, and so our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it has run. Nobody sets off before you have had our quote over the phone.
Emptying the tank comes next, then a full flush of the system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and none of it clears away by itself. That is why it matters more. The filter flushed or, if needed, replaced; fresh diesel in; and then a check of the car. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
Unrun vehicles mostly mean a half-hour job from the moment we arrive. The kit is safe on a busy filling station, and quiet enough for a driveway late at night. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, have a look at your policy; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Paulton
Paulton is a village in Somerset, situated on the riverside in the South West of England, with an elevation of around 116 metres. Paulton lies near the cities of Bath and Bristol, and is surrounded by smaller settlements such as Brittens, Winterfield, and Withy Mills. Paulton has a population of approximately 3169 people, and its housing stock is predominantly made up of terraced homes. Paulton is located about 103 miles west of London, making it a relatively rural community in the region.
Paulton and Somerset: AdBlue drains across the area
Winterfield and Withy Mills are among the places near Paulton, a village, that the same teams cover, over BS postcodes. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting BS39 7.
No need to shift your car. Wherever it sits — beside Holy Trinity Church, in a lay-by en route to Cam Valley Sports Club, at home — that's where it is cleared. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of The Hub, ring and ask rather than guessing.
The short version for Paulton people
Always, the cap; after that, the tip. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave it off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it waits, anywhere across Somerset.