Siddington: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. Usually, if your engine has not turned, it's emptied and fully cleaned where your car sits around Siddington. Here before the event? In that case what follows explains how it comes about and what to prevent it ever happening.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
No single liquid but two: that is how many modern diesels near Siddington and Preston run, with diesel for your motor. The exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to clean it, from a separate tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on a lot of motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, poured by a driver who has to stop and think which cap to use. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place around Siddington
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Bowly Crescent before work, or in the car park outside Greyhound on the way home.
Next, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old car — since a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not.
Lastly, the bottle goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in as readily, and after the tip begins, nothing halts it. Upper Siddington or the middle of Siddington: it takes the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these first, at a forecourt around Siddington or a drive out in New Mills. A few seconds, no more.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally is not. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — many vehicles mark what belongs in which filler right there.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Kemble? Ask the person who drove it last before you set off, not once the light goes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
On the day the warning appears — wherever you are in Gloucestershire — a simple routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of Parkway, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park then switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at step two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? So stop right there. Don't go on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Siddington?
Do not start your engine: that is how the short order of things starts. The fuel pump runs on many diesels the moment the ignition goes on — and so leave it off. Topping up with diesel will not weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the bottom of your tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Tesco, Esso or another — the staff will usually help roll the car away, when you ask. If you're on your own drive in Siddington, leave it where it is.
Where the motor has run already, stop safely then switch it off. Siddington sits under 10 miles from the M4; there, take the first junction. Mileage matters — a short hop across Siddington is a smaller job than driving under 25 miles to Gloucester — so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our engineers arrive around Siddington, what happens?
Our technicians come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Siddington Church of England Primary School, close to Saint Peter or on your own drive. Our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and whether it's run, since the answers settle this work and our price. The price comes over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
The fuel system is then rinsed thoroughly, after your tank is drained. Much more than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: the crystals build up, some metals corrode, and none of that clears out unaided, no matter how long it is left. Once the fuel filter is cleaned — or renewed, if needed — clean diesel goes in, and then the car gets tested. Before we leave, our engineers fire it up and check that it's running correctly.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the engine has not run need roughly half an hour once our technicians arrive. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Siddington
Siddington is a village in Gloucestershire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of around 103 metres. Siddington lies near the larger city of Gloucester, approximately 17 miles to the south, and is surrounded by smaller settlements like Upper Siddington and Watermoor. Siddington has a population of around 788 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Siddington is located within the South West region, about 79 miles west of London.
AdBlue drains around Siddington and across Gloucestershire
Being a village, Siddington shares its vans nearby areas — Kings Hill, Watermoor — all the way through GL postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Quickest of all: quote a GL7 6 postcode for the van.
No need to move the car. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Siddington Copse, a side street close to Cirencester Baptist Church: our technicians drain the car where it is. Guessing won't help behind All Saints, close to a border, or anywhere awkward to describe; phone and ask.
The short version for Siddington motorists
Before you pour, read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep it switched off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, throughout Gloucestershire.