How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Chacewater
Pause reading for a moment if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. In Chacewater, catching it before your engine runs usually leaves a drain and a full flush on the spot. Here before the event? Then the rest explains how it happens and what to prevent it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads around Chacewater and Creegbrawse carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally goes in from a bottle, poured by a driver who must stop and think which cap it needs. That gap is where the error lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Chacewater: how it happens
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things lining up at once.
On a drive off Station Road before work, or in the car park outside The Kings Head on the way home: that's where the hurried top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle warns you, and once it is gone, limp mode kicks in.
Then, your hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old car — because a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
No part stops the tip after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Wheal Busy or the middle of Chacewater: it takes the same few seconds either way.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Carnhot or a forecourt in Chacewater, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue ones are often blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Check for it.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Perranwell? Check with whoever drove the car last before leaving, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Cornwall that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Fore Street.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting your car, shut the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap was never opened off.
Discover at the second or third step that the bottle went in the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Step five is out.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Chacewater?
The short order of things, starting with no starting the motor. Keep the ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself starts the fuel pump. 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 drawn from.
On a forecourt — Esso, Texaco or another — the attendants will usually help roll the vehicle clear, when you ask. If you're on your own drive in Chacewater, leave it where it is.
Already run? Pull over once it is safe, then switch off. Leave the M5 — over 50 miles out of Chacewater — at the first exit. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Chacewater is a smaller job than driving under 5 miles towards Truro — so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we get there in Chacewater, what occurs?
Outside Chacewater Community Primary School, near Chacewater Women's Institute Hall or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Both the work and the price depend on three replies — which fluid, which quantity, and if it has run — so we ask. Nobody sets off until you've had our price by phone.
The system is then cleaned thoroughly, once your tank is drained. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. Once your filter is flushed — or replaced, where needed — clean diesel is added, and finally your car is tested. We do not go until it has been started and is running smoothly.
With pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine has not run need about half an hour once our technicians arrive. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Chacewater and where it is
Chacewater is a village in Cornwall, situated on the banks of the River Kenwyn at an elevation of 58 metres. Chacewater lies approximately 4.7 miles from Truro, the nearest city, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Wheal Busy and Jollys Bottom. Chacewater has a population of around 942 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Chacewater is located in the South West region of England, about 235.6 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Cornwall, Chacewater included
Jollys Bottom and Cox Hill are among the places around Chacewater, a village, that the same teams cover, throughout TR postcodes. Fastest of all: quote a TR4 8 postcode to the van.
Your car stays where it is. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Chacewater Village Hall, a lay-by on the way to Chacewater Recreation Ground, a drive. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Chacewater Community Car Park and Garden.
In short, for Chacewater motorists
Before you tip, read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across Cornwall.