How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Waterside
Pause here for a moment when the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then phone 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out just where your vehicle stands in Waterside, is usually all it needs when found before the motor runs. The rest of this page explains why it takes place and how to make sure it does not — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Not one fluid but two: that's how plenty of newer diesels near Waterside and Welton Hollow run, with diesel feeding your engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
Each tank has its own filler. Many of cars have a single flap for both, while some put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, the diesel side gets filled all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and usually by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs around Waterside
Carelessness rarely causes it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off The Leaze before work, or in the car park at The Railway on the way home.
The old car's cap is where your hand reaches — but a rental car, a new motor or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That's the second thing: a strange vehicle.
Lastly, the spout fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in just as easily, and once the pour begins, no part halts it. It takes seconds, be it in Westfield or right in the heart of Waterside.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Wheelers Hill or a forecourt around Waterside.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually do not.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler is if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Oldfield Park? Check with whoever drove the vehicle last before you set off, not when the light goes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
The day the light comes on, wherever around Somerset, follow this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Larch Court.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then check again — making sure your diesel cap stayed closed throughout. Only then, start the vehicle.
Discover during the second or third step that the bottle went into the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Stage five stays out.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Waterside already?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting your motor. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the car on. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Shell, Esso or another — the attendants will normally help push the vehicle away, when you ask. On your own drive in Waterside? So your car remains put.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the motor has already run. The next exit is the place to leave if you are on the M32, under 15 miles from Waterside. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Bath, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Waterside.
Our arrival in Waterside, and what happens next
By Westfield Primary School, near Westfield Methodist Church or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, we come to it. Both the work and the price rest on three replies — what fluid, which amount, and whether it's run — so our technicians ask. On the phone call itself, you are told the quote — ahead of anything else.
Next: draining, then a full flush of the entire system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither washes away by itself. That is why it matters more. A test is at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and your filter is flushed or changed if necessary. After that we start it and confirm it runs correctly before we leave.
If the motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house 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 included in plenty of insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Waterside itself
Waterside is a suburban area in Somerset, situated on the riverside with an elevation of 114 metres, and is located near the city of Bath. Waterside has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are the most predominant. Waterside is close to other nearby places such as Westfield, West Hill Gardens, and Haydon, and is about 8 miles from Bath. Waterside is also within commuting distance to larger cities, with London being approximately 102 miles away.
Waterside and Somerset: AdBlue drains across the area
West Hill Gardens and Haydon are among the towns around Waterside, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, throughout BA postcodes. Quickest of all: quote a BA3 3 postcode for the van.
No need to shift your car. The drain happens on the spot, whether a driveway, a road near Haydon Que And Social Club, or a layby on the way to Westhill Recreation Ground. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of St Peter's Westfield, ring and ask rather than assuming.
In short, for Waterside motorists
Before you pour, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave the car off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it waits, anywhere across Somerset.