Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Crooklets: Why It Occurs
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then put this page down for now, keep your ignition and motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Crooklets. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Many modern diesels around Lynstone, as well as Crooklets, carry on two liquids; the engine gets only your diesel. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to fresh them, from a separate tank.
Separate tanks, different fillers. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up constantly. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less often, normally from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
Crooklets: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the car, and letting it run out leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Crooklets, perhaps outside The Barrel Bude on the way home that evening.
New-to-you vehicles come second, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company vehicles put their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in just as easily, and once the tip begins, nothing halts it. It takes a few seconds, be it out in Bude or right in the heart of Crooklets.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Be it a Crooklets forecourt or a driveway out in Hillhead, take a couple of seconds over these before anything is poured in.
- Check the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — many vehicles mark which goes in which filler right there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at the nearest station? Check with the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, not once the light goes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
The day the light comes on, wherever around Cornwall, use this routine.
- Turn off once parked — flat ground, motor off, and not rushed by Maer Down Road at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It seems daft. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Never go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Crooklets?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting your motor. Leave the ignition off as well, because on many diesels it alone runs your pump. Diluting it with extra diesel fails, since AdBlue settles to the base rather than mixing — and that is where the fuel is sucked from.
The attendants at Shell, Morrisons or any forecourt will normally help pushing your car clear when asked. At home around Crooklets? Then the vehicle remains where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. On the M5, under 50 miles from Crooklets, that means the next junction. A short hop across Crooklets is a smaller job than a run towards Plymouth, under 50 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our technicians turn up around Crooklets, what takes place?
Our technicians come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Bude Primary Academy - Infants, near Wrangle Point or on your own driveway. Which liquid got in, the amount, and if it ran: we ask because those answers decide the work and quote. No one sets off before you've heard our price by phone.
Emptying that tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the fuel system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. The filter cleaned or, where it must be, swapped; fresh diesel in; and then a check of your car. Before we go, our engineers start it and check that it's running correctly.
Unrun vehicles usually need a half-hour job from arrival. The equipment is safe on a busy filling station, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Crooklets
Crooklets is a small suburban area in Cornwall, situated on the coast near the town of Bude. Crooklets sits at a low elevation of around 8 metres, looking out over the Atlantic Ocean. Crooklets is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its residential nature. Crooklets is located near other nearby places such as Flexbury and Poughill, and is around 36.8 miles from Plymouth.
AdBlue drains across Cornwall, Crooklets included
Being a residential suburb, Crooklets shares its vans nearby areas — Flexbury, Poughill — all the way through EX postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Quote a postcode beginning EX23 8, and the van gets there quickest.
Moving your car is not needed. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Flexbury Park Methodist Church, a lay-by on the way to Bude Cricket Club, a driveway. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of The Castle Heritage Centre, ring and ask instead of assuming.
For Crooklets people, the short version
Pour nothing till you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it waits, anywhere around Cornwall.