Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Barton
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then set this page down for now, leave your ignition and engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, carried out right where your vehicle sits in Barton, is normally what it needs when caught before your engine runs. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel goes to the motor — but plenty of modern diesels driven around Barton and Hele carry a second liquid as well. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. Many of vehicles have a single flap for the two, whereas others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at every filling station call-out, week in, week out. Far less often, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. The mistake grows in the gap between them.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Barton
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
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 Jack's Lane before work, or in the car park at The Old Engine House on the way home.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as easily, and once the tip starts, nothing stops it. Whether it happens in Watcombe or the middle of Barton, it is the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Higher Rocombe Barton or a forecourt in Barton, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally don't.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside the fuel flap: plenty of motors have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask as you pick up a hire car or company car — from Torre's car park, perhaps — rather than once the warning comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
The day the light comes on, anywhere across Devon, use this routine.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Barton Hill Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, but it does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two share a flap, make sure it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. 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. Stage five stays out.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Barton?
Short list, then. Top of that: the motor stays off. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch it on. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
Ask the staff to help roll the car clear of the pump if you are at a forecourt — the Esso, the another forecourt nearby or somewhere else. At home in Barton? So your car remains where it is.
When the motor has run by now, pull over somewhere safe then switch it off. On the M5, under 15 miles from Barton, that means the next exit. About how far did it go? Hopping across Barton is smaller a job than a run of under 25 miles to Exeter, and so tell us.
Our arrival in Barton, and what happens next
By Lift Barton Hill, close to Barton Baptist Church or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. The answers settle this work and the quote, and so our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it has run. That price is given on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
After that: draining, then a full flush of the whole system. More than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: crystals build up, certain metals corrode, and none of that clears away on its own, however long it sits. Testing is last: before that, clean diesel is added, and the fuel filter is flushed or replaced as needed. Next our engineers start it and make sure it runs smoothly before we leave.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine hasn't run take roughly half an hour once we arrive. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Barton
Barton is a suburban area in Devon, situated on the coast with nearby settlements including Watcombe and Combe Pafford. Barton sits at an elevation of around 110 metres, overlooking the surrounding landscape. Barton is characterized by its predominant semi-detached housing stock, reflecting its development as a residential area. Barton is located near the city of Exeter, approximately 15.7 miles away.
Barton and Devon: AdBlue drains across the area
Combe Pafford and Daccombe are among the places around Barton, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, throughout TQ postcodes. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting TQ2 8.
Your car remains put. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Saint Martin of Tours Church of England Parish Church, a lay-by on the way to Barton Downs, a driveway. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Acorn Centre.
Barton people: the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere around Devon, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — so leave the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.