How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Thornbury
Keep your motor and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Around Thornbury, catching it before the motor turns usually means a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. Here in advance? In that case what follows covers why it comes about and how to stop it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels around Kington, as well as Thornbury, carry on two liquids; your motor gets just your diesel. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank has one filler of its own. Plenty of cars have a single flap for the two, whereas some move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Topping up your diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. Far less commonly, the AdBlue side gets topped up — normally from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. The mistake grows in the gap between them.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Thornbury: how it occurs
It's hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from your car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off The Plain, perhaps outside The Royal George on the way home that evening.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, 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, and so nothing stops the pour after it has started. It's a few seconds, be it in Gillingstool or bang in the heart of Thornbury.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Crossways or a forecourt around Thornbury, check these. They take a few seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the flap and look for a label — many vehicles show what belongs in which filler right there.
- The handbook says which it lives when your filler is not next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Pilning? Check with the person who drove the car last before leaving, not when the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Gloucestershire that is.
- Switch off after you park — flat ground, motor stopped, and not in a rush beside Castle Street at the roadside.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud while unscrewing it. It sounds silly. It does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both share a flap, make sure it's shut before the bottle comes up.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Skip stage five entirely.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Thornbury?
Short list, then. Top of that: the engine remains unstarted. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel will not dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Tesco, Thornbury Motors or another — the attendants will usually help roll the vehicle away, when you ask. On your own drive around Thornbury? So the vehicle stays where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the motor has already run. On the M5, under 3 miles from Thornbury, that means the next junction. Distance counts — a short hop across Thornbury is a smaller job than driving under 15 miles towards Bristol — so say roughly how far it went.
Thornbury: what occurs when our technicians get there
Anywhere your car came to rest, whether by Gillingstool Primary School, beside The Pump or at home, our van travels to it. Both the work and our price rest on three replies — what fluid, which amount, and if it's run — so our engineers ask. You get that quote by phone, before anybody sets off.
The system is then flushed thoroughly, after your tank is drained. Much more than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: the crystals build up, some metals corrode, and nothing washes out on its own, no matter how long it is left. The filter flushed or, where needed, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a check of your vehicle. Your engine is fired up next and checked to make sure it runs properly, all before our engineers go.
If your engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Your insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once this job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Misfuelling cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Thornbury, for a moment
Thornbury is a town in Gloucestershire, situated near the Severn Estuary in the South West of England. Thornbury sits at an elevation of 46 metres, approximately 11 miles north of Bristol, and is characterised by its semi-detached housing stock. Thornbury is close to several smaller settlements, including Gillingstool, Sibland, and Morton, and is about 103 miles west of London. Thornbury has a population of around 13665 people.
AdBlue drains in Thornbury and across Gloucestershire
Thornbury is a coastal town, and our vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Sibland and Morton among them, across the BS postcode area. Fastest of all: quote a BS35 2 postcode for the van.
Moving the car is not needed. Anywhere it sits — beside Thornbury Methodist, on a layby heading to Chantry Garden, at home — that's where it is cleared. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Christ the King? Close to a border? Asking beats guessing, and so phone.
In short, for Thornbury people
Pour no AdBlue till you have read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it is, wherever in Gloucestershire: switch the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.