Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Winterbourne
Pause reading for a moment if your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, done just where your vehicle stands around Winterbourne, is usually what it takes if found before the engine runs. Here in advance? Then the rest covers why it comes about and how to prevent it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Many current diesels on the roads round Winterbourne and Moorend carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
Each tank has its own filler. Many of vehicles have a single flap for both, whereas others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. Mistakes happen in that gap between the two.
Winterbourne: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
Haste follows from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off Dragon Road, or heading home in the car park outside George and Dragon.
The old car's cap is where your hand goes — yet a hire car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's a second thing: an unfamiliar vehicle.
Third, the spout goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in as easily, and once the tip begins, nothing halts it. It takes a few seconds, whether in Winterbourne Down or right in the centre of Winterbourne.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Kendleshire or a forecourt in Winterbourne, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually is not. Read it instead of going by position.
- On plenty of vehicles, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of cars carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Bristol Parkway, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
On the day the warning appears — anywhere you are around Gloucestershire — a simple routine to follow.
- Not in a rush on the side of Flaxpits Lane, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park then switch off first.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — once you've found the filler and read the cap.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Leave out stage five entirely.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Winterbourne?
Brief order, then. First: the engine stays off. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels as soon as your ignition goes on — so keep it off. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom rather than mixing — and that is where the fuel is pulled from.
Ask the staff to help roll your car away from the petrol pump if you're on a forecourt — the Esso, the BP or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway in Winterbourne.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. Winterbourne sits under a mile from the M4; on it, use the first exit. A short hop across Winterbourne is a smaller job than a run towards Bristol, under 10 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
Winterbourne: what happens when we turn up
By St Michael's Church of England Primary School, Winterbourne, near Winterbourne Library or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, we come to it. Our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it's run, since the replies determine this work and our price. The price comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
Emptying that tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. The filter flushed or, if it must be, replaced; fresh diesel in; then a test of the car. Before leaving, our technicians start it and check that it's running properly.
Unstarted vehicles mostly need a half-hour job after arrival. The kit is safe on a busy filling station, and quiet enough for a driveway after dark. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents your insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. It's worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Winterbourne and where it is
Winterbourne is a village in Gloucestershire, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of around 72 metres. Winterbourne lies close to the city of Bristol, approximately 6 miles to the south west, and is part of a network of nearby settlements including Winterbourne Down and Whiteshill. Winterbourne has a mix of housing types, with semi-detached homes being particularly prevalent. Winterbourne is located within commuting distance of Bristol and is also around 102 miles west of London.
AdBlue drains across Gloucestershire, Winterbourne included
As a village, Winterbourne has the same vans as surrounding areas — Watleys End, Whiteshill — all the way through BS postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Give a postcode that starts BS36 1, and our van gets there quickest.
Your car does not need to shift. Draining happens on the spot, whether a driveway, a street by St Michael the Archangel, or a layby towards Monks Pool LNR. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of The Greenfield Centre, ring and ask rather than guessing.
In short, for Winterbourne motorists
First, the cap; after that, the tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere across Gloucestershire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — and so leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.