How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Radstock
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case put this page down a moment, keep your ignition and motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. Usually, when the engine has not turned, it's drained and thoroughly purged where the car is in Radstock. Reading before the event? Then what follows covers how it happens and what to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds your motor — but many modern diesels seen round Radstock and Haydon hold a second fluid as well. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank has 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 the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in at every forecourt call-out, again and again. Rarely topped up, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, poured by a driver who must stop and think what filler it needs. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs in Radstock
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Wells Road before work, or in the car park outside The Radstock Hotel on the way home.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new vehicle 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, so nothing stops the pour once it has started. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Radstock or out in Fox Hills.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Welton Hollow or a forecourt around Radstock, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of cars have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Oldfield Park.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
The day the light comes on, anywhere across Somerset, follow this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Fortescue Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, shut the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap never opened off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Don't carry on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Radstock?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting the engine. Keep the ignition off too, because on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself starts the fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
The staff at Shell, Esso or any forecourt will normally help pushing the car away when you ask. At home in Radstock? Then the car stays put.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Leave the M32 — under 15 miles out of Radstock — at the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Radstock is less work than a run of under 10 miles towards Bath, and so say.
Our arrival around Radstock, and what happens next
Outside St Nicholas Church School, near Trinity Methodist Church or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, our engineers come to it. We ask what went in, about how much, and if it's run, since the replies decide this work and our price. You hear that price on the phone, before anyone sets off.
Your system is then flushed thoroughly, once that tank is emptied. 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. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Your engine is started next and tested to confirm it runs correctly, all before our technicians go.
If the motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Nothing upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Radstock and where it is
Radstock is a town in the county of Somerset, situated on the banks of the River Somer, near the city of Bath. Radstock sits at an elevation of 74 metres, in a riverside setting that has influenced its development over time. Radstock is characterized by its semi-detached housing stock, which reflects the town's growth during various periods of expansion. Radstock is located near several nearby places, including Fox Hills, Southfield, and Northfield, and is approximately 101 miles from London.
Radstock and Somerset: AdBlue drains across the area
Southfield and Northfield are among the towns near Radstock, a riverside town, that the same teams cover, over BA postcodes. Quote a postcode beginning BA3 3, and our van arrives fastest.
There's no need to shift the vehicle. Draining takes place on the spot, be it a drive, a street near Radstock Baptist Church, or a lay-by on the way to Radstock Bristol Road. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Radstock Methodist Church, ring and ask instead of assuming.
Radstock drivers: the short version
Pour no AdBlue until you've read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave the vehicle switched off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Somerset.