Totterdown: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Pause here a minute when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Around Totterdown, finding it before the motor turns usually leaves a drain and a full flush where it stands. Reading in advance? Then what follows covers how it happens and what to prevent it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Diesel goes to the motor — yet many current diesels seen round Totterdown and Box Makers Yard carry another fluid as well. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. Other cars keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have both side by side under one flap. Diesel gets filled on every filling station visit, again and again. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. It is in that gap that the slip happens.
Totterdown: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things coming up together.
On a driveway off St Luke's Road before work, or in the car park at Star & Dove on the way home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it's empty, limp mode follows.
Then, the hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old car — since a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
Third, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in just as easily, and once the tip starts, nothing halts it. It takes a few seconds, be it out in Windmill Hill or right in the centre of Totterdown.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt in Totterdown or a drive out in The Dings. Seconds, no more.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of motors have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check as you pick up a hire car or company car — from Bedminster's car park, say — rather than when the light appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
The day the light comes on, wherever in Bristol, use this routine.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Ravenhill Road.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you've found your filler and read it.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Before you start the car, shut the cap and look again that the diesel cap never came off.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Step five stays out.
Totterdown: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. Do not switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — Shell, Asda or any other — the attendants will normally help push the vehicle clear, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Totterdown.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. On the M32, under 3 miles from Totterdown, that means the next exit. A short hop across Totterdown is a smaller job than a run towards Bristol, under 3 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
When our engineers arrive in Totterdown, what takes place?
Anywhere the vehicle came to rest, whether by St Mary Redcliffe Church of England Primary School, near Fitness & Martial Arts or on your own drive, the van travels to it. Which fluid went in, the amount, and if it ran: our engineers ask because those replies decide the work and price. That quote is given on the call, before any van leaves.
Then that tank is emptied and the system cleaned thoroughly. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and none of that clears out unaided. Hence it counts more. The filter flushed or, if needed, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a test of your car. Before we leave, our technicians start the engine and confirm that it's running properly.
Unrun vehicles usually mean a half-hour job from arrival. The kit is fine on a busy filling station, and hushed enough for a driveway after dark. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Totterdown
Totterdown is a suburban area in Bristol, situated on the banks of the River Avon, with a mix of terraced housing and local amenities. Totterdown sits close to the city centre, approximately 1.2 miles from Bristol, and is near other neighbourhoods such as Windmill Hill and Knowle. Totterdown has a relatively low elevation of around 24 metres above sea level, and its riverside setting provides views of the surrounding area. Totterdown is home to a population of around 9677 people, living in predominantly terraced houses.
Totterdown and Bristol: AdBlue drains across the area
Knowle and Knowle Park are among the places around Totterdown, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, over BS postcodes. Fastest of all: give a BS3 4 postcode for the van.
No need to shift the vehicle. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street close to Bristol Jamia Mosque, a lay-by on the way to Zone N, a drive. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Totterdown Methodist Church.
The short version for Totterdown motorists
Read the cap before you pour. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it wherever it is, anywhere around Bristol: keep it off then phone 0333 366 0103.