Urchfont: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Pause here a minute when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, done right where your vehicle sits around Urchfont, is usually what it needs when caught before your motor runs. Nothing happened yet? Below, the rest of the page covers the reasons it takes place and the how to prevent it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
No single liquid but two: that's how many modern diesels near Urchfont and Lydeway run, with diesel feeding the engine. Its own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, where a spray treats the gas.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on many cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in your boot instead. The diesel side is topped up at the pump all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue usually goes in out of a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think which filler it needs. It is in the gap that the error happens.
Urchfont: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a driveway off High Street before work, or in the car park outside The Lamb heading home: that's where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car tells you, and if it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
Unfamiliar cars come next, too. Hire cars, new motors and company cars put their fillers differently, and the hand reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
Lastly, the bottle fits: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in just as readily, and once the pour starts, no part halts it. Townsend or the heart of Urchfont: it is the same few seconds either way.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Check these first, on a forecourt around Urchfont or a driveway out in Eastcott. A few seconds, no more.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- On plenty of vehicles, the size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — many vehicles mark which goes in which filler right there.
- The handbook says where it is if the filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Pewsey? Check with whoever drove the car last before leaving, rather than once the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
For the day the light appears — anywhere it is around Wiltshire — a simple routine to use.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, engine off, and never in a rush beside B3098 on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the 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.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Find at stage two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop just there. Don't go on to step five.
Urchfont: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the motor. The fuel pump starts on many diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — and so leave it off. Diluting it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom rather than mixing — and that is where the fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — Esso, Murco or any other — the attendants will normally help roll the vehicle clear, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive around Urchfont.
Where the motor has been run by now, stop safely then switch the vehicle off. The next junction means the place to leave if you're on the M4, under 25 miles from Urchfont. About how far did it go? Hopping across Urchfont is less a job than a run of under 25 miles towards Salisbury, and so tell us.
Urchfont: what happens when our technicians get there
The van comes to the car wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, near St Michael and All Angels, or outside Urchfont Church of England Primary School. Both the work and the quote rest on three replies — what liquid, which amount, and if it's run — so our technicians ask. The quote comes over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Next: draining, then a full flush of the whole system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes out by itself. Hence it counts more. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Before we leave, we fire it up and check that it is running properly.
Unrun vehicles mostly need a half-hour visit from arrival. The equipment is safe on a busy filling station, and quiet enough for a residential street after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Urchfont, briefly
Urchfont is a rural village in Wiltshire, situated inland at an elevation of 119 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Urchfont lies near the villages of Townsend, Cuckoos Corner, and Wedhampton, and is approximately 17.9 miles from Salisbury. Urchfont has a population of around 990 residents and is about 79.4 miles from London. Urchfont remains a quiet village community with a strong sense of local identity.
AdBlue drains across Wiltshire, Urchfont included
Urchfont is a rural village, and our vans that cover it also work the towns near it, Cuckoos Corner and Wedhampton among them, across the SN postcode area. Quickest of all: give a SN10 4 postcode for our van.
Your car doesn't need to move. Anywhere it sits — beside Urchfont Village Hall, on a lay-by en route to Farmers Field, at home — that's where it gets emptied. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Planks Farm Shop, ring and ask instead of assuming.
The short version for Urchfont motorists
Tip nothing till you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere across Wiltshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — and so leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103.