How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Skilling
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case set this page aside a moment, keep the ignition and motor off, then call 0333 366 0103. Normally, when your motor has not turned, it's drained and thoroughly purged where your vehicle is around Skilling. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Plenty of modern diesels around Allington, as well as Skilling, carry on two liquids; your motor gets just your diesel. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on a lot of cars. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the pump, your diesel side gets filled constantly. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, tipped by a driver who has to stop and think which filler it needs. That gap is where the slip lives.
Skilling: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
Carelessness seldom explains it. What does is three things lining up at once.
On a driveway off Elizabeth Avenue before work, or in the car park at Hope & Anchor on the way home: that's where the rushed top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low your car warns you, and once it is empty, limp mode kicks in.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout fits: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in just as easily, and once the pour begins, no part stops it. Watton or the heart of Skilling: it is the same few seconds either way.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Lower Eype or a forecourt around Skilling, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue ones are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually aren't.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of cars carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Maiden Newton, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
The day the light comes on, anywhere in Dorset, follow this routine.
- Not in a rush on the side of Vearse Close, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park then switch off properly.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you have located the filler and read it.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both sit under a flap, make sure it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then check again — making sure the diesel filler stayed closed the whole time. After that, start the vehicle.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop just there. Leave out step five altogether.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Skilling already?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with not starting your engine. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel will not dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of that tank, right where the fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — Morrisons, Esso or any other — the attendants will usually help roll the vehicle clear, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Skilling.
Already run? Stop once it is sensible, then switch off. On the M5, under 25 miles from Skilling, that means the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Skilling is smaller a job than a run of under 50 miles towards Exeter, and so say.
What takes place when we arrive around Skilling
The van reaches the car anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside Bridport Leisure Centre, or outside Bridport, St Mary's Church of England Primary School. The answers settle this work and the price, and so our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and if it's run. No one heads out until you have had the quote over the phone.
Emptying the tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. Once your filter has been cleaned — or replaced, if required — clean diesel is added, and then the car gets tested. Next our engineers start the engine and confirm it runs properly before we go.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where your motor has not run need about half an hour after our technicians arrive. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It's worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Skilling, for a moment
Skilling is a small suburban area on the Dorset coast, situated near Bridport and Watton, with a mix of residential and coastal scenery. Skilling has a relatively low elevation of 46 metres, and its coastal setting influences the local climate and environment. Skilling is home to a population of around 1852 people, predominantly residing in flats, and is located near the town of Bridport.
AdBlue drains round Skilling, and Dorset beyond
As a residential suburb, Skilling shares its vans nearby places — New Zealand, Bridport — right through DT postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting DT6 5.
There's no need to shift the vehicle. Wherever it sits — near Rockburn, in a layby heading to St. Mary's Playing Field, at home — that's where it is emptied. Assuming doesn't help at the back of St. Mary's Bridport, close to a boundary, or somewhere awkward to describe; ring and ask.
The short version for Skilling drivers
First, the cap; then, the tip. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere in Dorset.