How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Yate
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and the ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. Normally, when your motor has not run, it is emptied and fully cleaned where your vehicle is in Yate. Here before the event? In that case the rest explains why it comes about and what to stop it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Diesel feeds your motor — yet plenty of newer diesels seen round Yate and Engine Common carry another fluid as well. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
There's a filler for every tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the arrangement on a lot of motors. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. The AdBlue side is filled far less often, usually from a bottle, and usually by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. The error lives in that gap.
Yate: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
Carelessness rarely causes it. Instead is three things lining up at once.
Haste comes from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off A432, or on the way home in the car park outside Thorn's Farm.
Unfamiliar vehicles are second, as well. Hire cars, new motors and company cars put their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap it used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once started, keeps on. Chipping Sodbury or the middle of Yate: it is the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt around Yate or a drive out in Yate Rocks. A few seconds, no more.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the flap and check for a label — many cars show what goes in each inlet just there.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at the nearest station? Check with the person who drove the car last before leaving, rather than once the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
Wherever in Gloucestershire the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, motor stopped, and never rushed beside Westerleigh Road at the roadside.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — after you've located the filler and read the cap.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two share a flap, make sure it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- 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 stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Step five is off limits.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Yate?
Brief list, then. Top of it: the engine stays unstarted. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
Ask the attendants to help push the car clear of the pump if you are at a forecourt — the Morrisons, the Shell or anywhere else. At home in Yate? So the car stays where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. Leave the M4 — under 3 miles out of Yate — at the next junction. Distance counts — a short hop across Yate makes a smaller job than heading under 10 miles towards Bristol — so say about how far it went.
Yate: what takes place when we arrive
The van comes to your car wherever it stopped — your own drive, beside The Armadillo, or outside St Mary's Church of England Primary School, Yate. We ask what was put in, about how much, and if it's run, because the replies decide this work and the quote. The quote is given on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
The fuel system is then purged thoroughly, after the tank is cleared. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more here than with petrol. Testing comes at the end: before that, fresh diesel is added, and the filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running properly.
If your motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Your insurer usually wants an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours once this job is done. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Yate itself
Yate is a town in Gloucestershire, situated on the River Frome at an elevation of 79 metres, with terraced housing being a predominant feature of the area. Yate lies near the cities of Bristol and Bath, and is close to the towns of Chipping Sodbury and Thornbury. Yate has a population of approximately 25,434 people and is located about 9.9 miles from Bristol. Yate is also within commuting distance of London, being around 98.5 miles away.
AdBlue drains around Yate and across Gloucestershire
Being a riverside town, Yate shares its vans surrounding places — Rodford, Nibley — right across BS postcodes and the wider area around them. Quote a postcode beginning BS37 4, and our van arrives quickest.
No need to move the car. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near Yate Leisure Centre, a lay-by on the way to Armdillio Playing Ground, a drive. Assuming won't help at the back of Yate Parish Hall, on a border, or somewhere awkward to describe; ring and ask.
Yate drivers: the short version
Always, the cap; after that, the tip. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it stands, wherever across Gloucestershire: keep it off then phone 0333 366 0103.