How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Walton
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Walton. The remainder of this page explains why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds the motor — but plenty of newer diesels driven about Walton and Stone Hill hold a second liquid as well. The exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to fresh it, from its own tank.
There is a filler on every tank. Some vehicles put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have the two side by side behind one flap. At the pump, the diesel side gets filled all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue usually goes in out of a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think which cap it needs. The mistake lives in that gap.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Walton: how it occurs
It's hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Hurry comes from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off Smallmoor Chase, or on the way home in the car park outside The Royal Oak.
The old car's cap is where your hand reaches — but a rental car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That's the second factor: a strange car.
A spouted bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, once begun, keeps on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Walton or out in Asney.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Lower Leigh or a forecourt around Walton, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue ones are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually aren't.
- On plenty of cars, the size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Open the filler flap and look for a label — plenty of motors mark what belongs in each inlet just there.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler is if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Bridgwater? Check with the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, rather than when the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Somerset that is.
- Pull in somewhere level, engine off, with time to spare — not rushing on the side of St. Michaels Court.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you have found the filler and read it.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the car on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Don't go on to step five.
Walton: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Don't start your motor: that is where the short order of things starts. The fuel pump runs on many diesels as soon as your ignition goes on — and so leave it off. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the Sainsbury's or the Shell, ask the attendants to help push your car away from the petrol pump. Your own driveway around Walton is the place it should stay.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. Come off the M5 — under 10 miles out of Walton — at the next junction. About how far did it go? Hopping across Walton is smaller a job than a trip of under 10 miles towards Wells, so tell us.
Our arrival around Walton, and what takes place next
Anywhere the vehicle came to rest, whether outside Walton Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School, near Holy Trinity or on your own drive, our van travels to it. Our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and if it has run, since those answers decide this work and the price. You get that quote on the phone, before anyone sets off.
The system is then cleaned thoroughly, after the tank is cleared. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. After the filter is flushed — or renewed, if needed — fresh diesel is added, and then your vehicle gets tested. Next we start the engine and check it runs properly before we leave.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor has not run need roughly half an hour after our technicians are there. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It is worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Walton
Walton is a small village in inland Somerset, situated near the city of Wells and other nearby places such as Asney and Berhill. Walton has a relatively low elevation of 31 metres and is located approximately 117 miles west of London. Walton remains a quiet residential community with a mix of housing types, predominantly semi-detached homes. Walton is home to around 874 residents, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains across Somerset, Walton included
Portland and Berhill are among the places near Walton, a rural village, that the same vans cover, over BA postcodes. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting BA16 9.
The vehicle remains put. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near Walton Village Hall, a lay-by on the way to Walton Park, a driveway. Tricky to explain, like the back of The Salvation Army - Street? Close to a county line? Asking beats assuming, so phone.
For Walton motorists, the short version
Tip nothing until you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere across Somerset.