Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bodmin: Why It Occurs
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. In Bodmin, catching it before your motor turns usually leaves a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. The rest of this page explains why it happens and how to make sure it does not — handy if you're reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Many modern diesels around Bodiniel, like those in Bodmin, run on two liquids; your engine gets just the diesel. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust gas to clean it.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Other motors put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place the two side by side under one flap. Filling the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in that gap that the slip happens.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs in Bodmin
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things coming up together.
On a drive off Priory Road before work, or in the car park at The Weavers Inn heading home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car warns you, and once it is empty, limp mode follows.
The old car's filler is where the hand reaches — but a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is the second factor: a new car.
Third, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in as easily, and once the tip starts, nothing halts it. It takes seconds, whether out in Cooksland or bang in the centre of Bodmin.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Carminow Cross or a forecourt in Bodmin, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- On many cars, size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of cars say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by the diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check when you pick up a rental or fleet car — from Bodmin Parkway's car park, say — rather than once the light appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
When the light comes on, wherever in Cornwall, use this routine.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Honey Street.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Finish when that tank fills or the bottle is empty; before that, tip gently through its own spout.
- Before starting the vehicle, shut the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap never opened off.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Stage five is off limits.
Bodmin: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
The short order of things, starting with not starting your motor. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — and so leave it off. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
At a forecourt — Texaco, Morrisons or another — the attendants will normally help roll the car away, if you ask. Your own driveway in Bodmin is the place it should stay.
Already run? Stop once it's sensible, then turn off. Bodmin sits over 50 miles from the M5; on it, take the next exit. A short hop across Bodmin is a smaller job than a run towards Truro, under 25 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival in Bodmin, and what happens next
Our van comes to the car wherever it stopped — your own drive, near St. Petroc's Church, or outside St Petroc's Church of England Voluntary Aided Primary School. Both the work and our quote depend on three replies — what fluid, what quantity, and if it has run — so our technicians ask. That price comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Next: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither clears out by itself. Hence it counts more. Once the fuel filter is flushed — or replaced, where needed — clean diesel is added, and then your car is tested. After that we fire it up and confirm it runs smoothly before we go.
If the motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. The insurer will ask for an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. It's worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Bodmin itself
Bodmin is a town located in the county of Cornwall, positioned inland within England. It is found near a significant moorland area, which shares its name. The town's setting is characterised by its proximity to this notable landscape feature, situated to the north-east of the town. Bodmin is a notable settlement in the region.
AdBlue drains across Cornwall, Bodmin included
Town End and Clerkenwater are among the towns around Bodmin, a town, that the same vans cover, over PL postcodes. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting PL31 2.
Your car stays put. We drain it where it is — a side street close to St Petroc Community Centre, a lay-by on the way to Priory Park, a driveway. Awkward to pin down, like the back of Shire Hall? Close to a county line? Asking beats guessing, and so phone.
The short version for Bodmin people
Pour nothing till you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere across Cornwall, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — and so leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103.