Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Tatworth
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and your ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, done just where your vehicle sits in Tatworth, is usually all it needs when found before the engine runs. Reading in advance? In that case the rest explains how it comes about and how to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds your motor — but plenty of modern diesels seen about Tatworth and Burridge carry another liquid 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.
There's a filler on every tank. Many of motors share a single flap for the two, while others move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at every filling station call-out, again and again. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. The error lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Tatworth
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things lining up at once.
On a drive off School Lane before work, or in the car park outside Perry Street Club & Institute 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 tells you, and once it's gone, limp mode follows.
Then, your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — since a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
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 after it has started. South Chard or the heart of Tatworth: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Axeford Estate or a forecourt in Tatworth.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually don't.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — plenty of motors show which goes in each filler right there.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it's not by your diesel cap, 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 outside Axminster, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
Anywhere around Somerset the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Stop somewhere level, motor off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of Waterlake Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Stop when that tank fills or the bottle is empty; before that, pour gently through the own spout.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop just there. Never go on to stage five.
Tatworth: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting your motor. Leave your ignition off as well, because on many diesels it by itself starts your pump. Thinning it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom rather than blending — and that is where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help push the car away from the petrol pump if you're at a forecourt — the Texaco, the Tesco or anywhere else. On your own drive around Tatworth? So your car remains put.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the engine has already run. On the M5, under 15 miles from Tatworth, that means the next junction. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Exeter, under 50 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Tatworth.
What takes place when we turn up around Tatworth
Our van reaches your car anywhere it stopped — your own driveway, near St John the Evangelist, or outside Tatworth Primary School. Both the work and our price depend on three answers — which fluid, which amount, and whether it's run — so our engineers ask. Nobody heads out until you have had our price by phone.
Draining the tank comes next, followed by a thorough 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, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Testing comes at the end: before that, clean diesel is added, and your filter is flushed or replaced as needed. Next we fire it up and check it runs correctly before we go.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where your motor hasn't run take roughly half an hour after our technicians arrive. Your insurer will ask for an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours once this job is done. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Tatworth and where it is
Tatworth is a small village in inland Somerset, situated near the towns of South Chard and Chard, at an elevation of around 98 metres. Tatworth has a population of approximately 670 residents and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Tatworth is located near the villages of Perry Street and Coombses, and is within commuting distance of the city of Exeter. Tatworth sits in a rural area, about 130 miles west of London.
AdBlue drains round Tatworth, and Somerset beyond
Tatworth is a rural village, and our vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Perry Street and Coombses among them, across the TA postcode area. Quickest of all: quote a TA20 2 postcode to our van.
Moving the car isn't needed. The drain happens on the spot, whether a driveway, a road by Bethel Baptist, or a layby on the way to Horn Moor. Tricky to explain, like the back of South Chard Church? Close to a county line? Checking is better than guessing, so phone.
Tatworth motorists: the short version
Pour no AdBlue till you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere in Somerset, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — and so leave it off then call 0333 366 0103.