How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Barbican
Pause reading a minute when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. In Barbican, finding it before the engine runs normally leaves draining and a thorough flush where it stands. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the page covers the reasons it occurs and the how to avoid it altogether.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Many current diesels on the roads about Barbican and St Judes carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the gas to fresh it, from a separate tank.
There is a filler on each tank. Under one flap, side by side: that's the layout on a lot of vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Diesel goes in at each forecourt visit, again and again. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally goes in out of a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think what filler it needs. It is in the gap that the error lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs around Barbican
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Exchange Street before work, or in the car park at The Three Crowns on the way home.
Then the car is strange. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing stops the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it happens in Plymouth or the middle of Barbican, it is the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a drive in Millbay or a forecourt around Barbican.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside your fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on many vehicles. Look for it.
- The handbook shows where it is if the filler isn't next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Plymouth, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
When the light goes on, anywhere across Devon, follow this routine.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — never rushing on the side of Parade.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two share a flap, confirm it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Spot at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop right there. Step five stays out.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Barbican?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting your engine. Do not switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it is the Asda or the another forecourt nearby, ask the attendants to help roll your car clear of the pump. If you are on your own driveway around Barbican, leave the car where it is.
Where the motor has run by now, pull over somewhere safe then switch the car off. On the M5, under 50 miles from Barbican, that means the next exit. Distance counts — a short hop across Barbican makes a smaller job than driving under a mile towards Plymouth — so tell us roughly how far it went.
What occurs when our engineers turn up around Barbican
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Holy Cross Catholic Primary School, close to Blends or on your own driveway. What fluid was put in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our engineers ask because the answers set both work and price. The price comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
The system is then purged thoroughly, once that tank is drained. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and none of that clears away by itself. That is why it matters more. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Your engine is started next and checked to make sure it runs properly, all before we leave.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after our engineers arrive, as long as your motor hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a live forecourt yet quiet at night beside a house. No money 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. It's worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Barbican, briefly
Barbican is a coastal suburban area in Devon, situated on the shores of Plymouth Sound. Barbican sits at a low elevation of around 5 metres, adjacent to the city of Plymouth. Barbican is characterized by its predominantly flat-type housing and its proximity to nearby places such as Coxside and Mount Batten.
AdBlue drains across Devon, Barbican included
Over PL postcodes, the vans covering Barbican — a residential suburb — work the surrounding places too, Mount Batten and Coxside included. Give a postcode that starts PL4 0, and the van arrives fastest.
No need to shift the vehicle. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Art 2 Frame, a lay-by on the way to Elizabethan Gardens, a drive. Awkward to explain, like the back of Blue Peace Gallery? By a county line? Asking is better than assuming, so phone.
The short version for Barbican drivers
Pour no AdBlue until you've read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, anywhere in Devon: switch the car off then ring 0333 366 0103.