Phipps Bottom: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Keep your motor and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Usually, if the engine hasn't turned, it is drained and thoroughly rinsed where the car sits around Phipps Bottom. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Not one liquid but two: that is what many newer diesels around Phipps Bottom and Yorkley run, with diesel for your engine. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the fumes to fresh it, from its own tank.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled on every forecourt visit, week in, week out. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think what filler it needs. That gap is where the slip lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Phipps Bottom
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things lining up at once.
Haste comes 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 in a rush, before work on a driveway off High Delf Way, or heading home in the car park outside The Miner's Arms.
Unfamiliar cars are second, as well. Hire cars, new motors and company motors put their fillers differently, and the hand reaches for the cap used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, once started, carries on. It takes a few seconds, whether in Whitecroft or bang in the heart of Phipps Bottom.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Whether a Phipps Bottom forecourt or a driveway out in Brockhollands, spend a few seconds on these before anything goes in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it rather than going by position.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Open the filler flap and look for a label — many cars show what belongs in which inlet right there.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by the diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Lydney? Check with the person who drove it last before you set off, rather than once the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — wherever you are across Gloucestershire — a routine to follow.
- Turn off after you park — level ground, motor stopped, and never rushed beside Morcroft Place at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- Both under one flap? So confirm the cap on the diesel filler stays shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Leave out stage five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Phipps Bottom?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your engine. Keep your ignition off too, because on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it is the Central Garage or the Co-op, ask the staff to help roll your car away from the pump. Your own driveway in Phipps Bottom is the place it should stay.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. On the M5, under 10 miles from Phipps Bottom, that means the next exit. About how far did it go? Crossing Phipps Bottom is less a job than a run of under 25 miles to Gloucester, so tell us.
What happens when our engineers turn up around Phipps Bottom
Outside Pillowell Community Primary School, near Pillowell Village Hall or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Both the work and our price depend on three answers — which liquid, which amount, and if it has run — so our engineers ask. On the call itself, you hear our quote — ahead of dispatch.
Emptying the tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of your system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and none of it clears out unaided. Hence it matters more. The filter flushed or, if it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; then a test of the car. After that our engineers start it and check it runs smoothly before we go.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where the engine hasn't run need about half an hour after we arrive. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Phipps Bottom and where it is
Phipps Bottom is a small suburban area in Gloucestershire, situated near the coast and approximately 15 miles from Gloucester. Phipps Bottom has a relatively low elevation of 54 metres and is surrounded by nearby places such as Whitecroft and Pillowell. Phipps Bottom is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its suburban nature.
AdBlue drains across Gloucestershire, Phipps Bottom included
Throughout GL postcodes, our teams covering Phipps Bottom — a residential suburb — work the surrounding places too, The Eaves and Pillowell among them. A postcode starting GL15 4 gets the van to you fastest.
The car doesn't need to move. Draining happens right there, whether a driveway, a road near Saint Paul, or a lay-by on the way to Bream's Eaves Inclosure 2. Tricky to explain, like the back of West Dean Centre? Close to a border? Asking is better than guessing, and so ring.
Phipps Bottom drivers: the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across Gloucestershire.