Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Diddywell: Why It Occurs
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. Normally, when the engine has not run, it's drained and fully rinsed where your vehicle sits around Diddywell. The remainder of this page explains why it occurs and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you are reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel goes to the motor — yet plenty of current diesels driven round Diddywell and Westleigh carry another 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.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on a lot of motors. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. The diesel side is topped up at the pump all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less frequently. It is in that gap that the mistake lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Diddywell: how it occurs
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the car, and letting it run dry means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Diddywell Road, or at Golden Lion on the way home that evening.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Third, the spout fits: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as easily, and once the pour starts, nothing stops it. Whether it occurs in Northam or the middle of Diddywell, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A few seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a drive in Silford or a forecourt around Diddywell.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- On plenty of cars, size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — plenty of motors mark what goes in which filler right there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The previous driver will know. Ask as you pick up a rental or company car — from Barnstaple's car park, say — not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Devon that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Primrose Lane, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park then switch off properly.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It seems daft. It works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, and look again — making sure your diesel cap remained closed throughout. After that, start the car.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? Then stop right there. Stage five is out.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Diddywell?
Don't start your engine: that is how the short order of things begins. Keep your ignition off as well, because on plenty of diesels it by itself starts your pump. Diluting it with more diesel fails, because AdBlue settles to the bottom instead of mixing — and that's where your fuel is pulled from.
At a forecourt — Morrisons, Texaco or any other — the attendants will normally help roll the car clear, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Diddywell.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your motor has already run. On the M5, under 50 miles from Diddywell, that means the next junction. Mileage counts — a short hop across Diddywell makes a smaller job than heading under 50 miles to Exeter — so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our engineers turn up in Diddywell, what takes place?
By Appledore School, close to Battle of Northam or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has run, because those answers decide the work and the price. You get that price on the phone, before anybody heads out.
Then the tank is emptied and the fuel system purged thoroughly. 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 counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. The filter cleaned or, if it must be, swapped; clean diesel in; then a check of the car. Next our technicians start it and check it runs correctly before leaving.
Unstarted vehicles usually mean a half-hour visit after arrival. The kit is fine on a live forecourt, and hushed enough for a driveway late at night. Your insurer will ask for an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Diddywell
Diddywell is a small suburban area in Devon, situated near the coast and close to the nearby places of Northam, Appledore, and Instow. Diddywell has a population of around 1189 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Diddywell sits at an elevation of 21 metres, looking out over the surrounding coastal landscape. Diddywell is located approximately 36.9 miles from Exeter, the nearest city.
Diddywell and Devon: AdBlue drains across the area
Being a residential suburb, Diddywell has the same vans as nearby areas — Appledore, Instow — all the way across EX postcodes and the wider area around them. A postcode starting EX39 1 gets the van to you fastest.
Your car remains where it is. Anywhere it sits — near Marshford, on a lay-by en route to Anchor Park, on a drive — that is where it gets cleared. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Bloody Corner, ring and ask instead of assuming.
For Diddywell people, the short version
Always, the cap; after that, the pour. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it wherever it stands, anywhere in Devon: keep the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103.