Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Sparkford Hill
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Sparkford Hill. The remainder of this page explains why it takes place and how to make sure it does not — useful if you're reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Diesel feeds your engine — but plenty of current diesels seen round Sparkford Hill and Eyewell carry another fluid as well. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
There is a filler for each tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on a lot of cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. The diesel side is topped up at the pump all the time. Much less frequently, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place around Sparkford Hill
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things lining up together.
On a driveway off A359 before work, or in the car park outside The Sparkford Inn heading home: that's where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle tells you, and if it's empty, limp mode follows.
Then the car is strange. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand gets to 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 tip after it has started. It's seconds, be it out in Queen Camel or bang in the centre of Sparkford Hill.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Weston Bampfylde or a forecourt around Sparkford Hill, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Position can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally do not.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — many vehicles show which belongs in which inlet right there.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Castle Cary? Ask the person who drove it last before you set off, rather than when the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
Wherever around Somerset the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Sparkford Hill Lane.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — after you have located your filler and read the cap.
- Both under a single flap? So make sure the cap on the diesel side stays closed before raising the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Before starting your car, close the cap and look again that the diesel cap never opened off.
Discover during the second or third step that the bottle went into the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Skip step five entirely.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Sparkford Hill already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the motor. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition goes on — and so leave it off. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of the tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help push your car away from the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the Shell, the Esso or anywhere else. Your own drive in Sparkford Hill is where it stays.
Where the engine has been run already, pull over somewhere safe and turn the car off. On the M5, under 25 miles from Sparkford Hill, that means the next junction. A short hop across Sparkford Hill is a smaller job than a run towards Wells, under 15 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
When our engineers arrive around Sparkford Hill, what takes place?
By Countess Gytha Primary School, near St Barnabas or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Both the work and our quote depend on three answers — which liquid, what amount, and whether it's run — so our engineers ask. On the phone call itself, you are told our price — ahead of anything else.
Then the tank is emptied and your system rinsed thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more here than with petrol. Testing comes last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the filter is flushed or changed if necessary. The engine is started next and tested to confirm it runs properly, all before our technicians head off.
If your motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, have a look at your policy; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Sparkford Hill
Sparkford Hill is a small hamlet situated on the riverside in Somerset, with an elevation of around 51 metres. Sparkford Hill lies near the villages of Queen Camel and Sparkford, and is close to Camel Hill. Sparkford Hill is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, and is located approximately 12.8 miles from the city of Wells.
AdBlue drains in Sparkford Hill and across Somerset
Over BA postcodes, our teams covering Sparkford Hill — a rural hamlet — work the nearby locations too, Camel Hill and Sparkford among them. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting BA22 7.
Moving the car is not needed. The drain takes place on the spot, be it a drive, a street near St Mary Magdalene, or a lay-by towards Sparkford Hill Copse. Assuming doesn't help behind Queen Camel Memorial Hall, close to a border, or somewhere awkward to describe; phone and ask.
Sparkford Hill motorists: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it is, wherever in Somerset: switch it off and call 0333 366 0103.