Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Pickwick: Why It Happens
Stop reading a minute when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Pickwick. Here before the event? Then the rest covers why it comes about and what to prevent it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Many current diesels on the roads around Pickwick and Greenhill carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on many motors. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. The mistake lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs in Pickwick
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
Haste comes from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a drive off Bath Road, or heading home in the car park outside Hare & Hounds.
Then the vehicle is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the pour once it has started. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Pickwick or out in Corsham.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Westwells or a forecourt around Pickwick, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- Plenty of vehicles give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Look for it.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Chippenham, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
Wherever around Wiltshire the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Turn off once parked — flat ground, engine off, and never in a rush beside Academy Drive at the roadside.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the car, shut the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap never came off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Never go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Pickwick?
Short order, then. First: the motor stays off. Leave your ignition off as well, because on plenty of diesels it by itself runs the fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is pulled from.
Ask the attendants to help push your car clear of the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Texaco, the Sainsbury's or anywhere else. If you're on your own drive in Pickwick, leave the car where it stands.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. Come off the M4 — under 10 miles out of Pickwick — at the first junction. Distance matters — a short hop across Pickwick makes a smaller job than heading under 10 miles towards Bath — so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our technicians arrive in Pickwick, what happens?
By The Corsham Regis Primary Academy, near St Patrick's Catholic Church or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our engineers come to it. Our engineers ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it has run, because those answers determine this work and the quote. On the phone call itself, you are told the price — ahead of dispatch.
Your system is then purged thoroughly, after your tank is emptied. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. A test comes last: before that, fresh diesel is added, and the fuel filter is flushed or replaced as needed. Your engine is started next and tested to confirm it runs properly, all before our engineers go.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your engine has not run need roughly half an hour once our engineers arrive. No money upfront; you settle up that day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Pickwick and where it is
Pickwick is a suburban area in Wiltshire, situated inland at an elevation of around 95 metres, and is located near the city of Bath. Pickwick has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are predominant in the area. Pickwick is close to several nearby places, including Corsham, Upper Pickwick, and Hudswell, and is about 7.8 miles from Bath. Pickwick is also within commuting distance to London, being around 89.2 miles away.
AdBlue drains round Pickwick, and Wiltshire beyond
Pickwick is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the towns near it, Upper Pickwick and Hudswell among them, across the SN postcode area. A postcode starting SN13 0 gets our van to you fastest.
There's no need to shift your car. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Corsham Library, a lay-by on the way to Beechfield Nature Area, a driveway. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Springfield Community Campus, ring and ask instead of assuming.
In short, for Pickwick motorists
Always, the cap; then, the pour. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it is, anywhere in Wiltshire: switch the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.