How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in White Cross
Leave your engine and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Normally, if the engine has not turned, it's drained and fully flushed where the car is around White Cross. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Many newer diesels in Cameley, like those in White Cross, run on two fluids; your motor takes only your diesel. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to clean it, from its own tank.
There's a filler for every tank. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, the diesel side gets filled constantly. Rarely filled, AdBlue usually goes in from a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think which filler to use. The error lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place around White Cross
It's rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off A37 before work, or in the car park outside The Old Station Inn on the way home.
New-to-you motors are second, as well. Hire cars, new motors and company motors place their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap it 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, so nothing stops the pour once it has started. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of White Cross or out in Hallatrow.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Paulton or a forecourt in White Cross, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- On many motors, size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler is if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Keynsham, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
The day the light comes on, anywhere in Somerset, follow this routine.
- Switch off once parked — flat ground, motor stopped, and never rushed beside Wells Road at the roadside.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It seems silly. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap, then check again — confirm the diesel cap remained shut the whole time. Only then, start your car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Skip step five entirely.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around White Cross?
Do not start the motor: that is where the short order of things begins. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the car on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
At a forecourt — Texaco, Murco or another — the staff will normally help roll the car away, when you ask. At home around White Cross? Then the vehicle stays where it is.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. The next junction means the place to come off if you're on the M32, under 15 miles from White Cross. About how far did it go? Hopping across White Cross is less work than a run of under 10 miles to Wells, and so tell us.
Our arrival around White Cross, and what happens next
Outside Farrington Gurney Church of England Primary School, close to Farrington Gurney Memorial Hall or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, we come to it. We ask what went in, about how much, and whether it's run, because the answers decide this work and our quote. That quote comes on the call, before any van leaves.
Next: draining, then a thorough flush of the entire system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and neither washes away unaided. That is why it counts more. Once the fuel filter is cleaned — or replaced, where required — fresh diesel is added, and then the vehicle gets tested. The engine is started next and checked to make sure it runs correctly, all before our engineers leave.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after our technicians arrive, as long as your motor hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. Nothing upfront; you settle up on the day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About White Cross and where it is
White Cross is a small hamlet situated on the riverside in Somerset, with a relatively low elevation of 107 metres. White Cross lies near several other small settlements, including Hallatrow, Farrington Gurney, and Temple Cloud, and is approximately 8.5 miles from the city of Wells. White Cross has a population of around 528 people, predominantly living in detached houses. White Cross is also within commuting distance of larger cities, being around 104.6 miles from London.
AdBlue drains in White Cross and across Somerset
White Cross is a rural hamlet, and the vans that cover it also work the towns near it, Farrington Gurney and Temple Cloud among them, across the BS postcode area. Quickest of all: quote a BS39 6 postcode to the van.
Shifting the car is not needed. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near Farrington Gurney Methodist Church, a lay-by on the way to Easton Wood, a drive. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of St John the Baptist, ring and ask instead of assuming.
White Cross motorists: the short version
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere in Somerset, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — so leave it off then phone 0333 366 0103.