Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Gappah: Why It Occurs
Leave your motor and ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain and a full flush, carried out right where your vehicle stands around Gappah, is usually all it takes if found before the motor runs. The rest of this page explains why it occurs and how to ensure it does not — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Not one liquid but two: that's what many modern diesels around Gappah and Chudleigh run, with diesel feeding your engine. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to clean them, from a separate tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Other cars put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place the two side by side under one flap. The diesel side is fuelled at the petrol pump all the time. The AdBlue side is filled far less frequently, normally from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in that gap that the slip lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur in Gappah?
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from your car, and letting it run dry means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Gappah Lane, perhaps at the pub in the village on the way home that evening.
Then, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old motor — because a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
Nothing halts the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's a few seconds, be it in Olchard or bang in the heart of Gappah.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Sandygate or a forecourt in Gappah, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Many vehicles give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on many cars. Check for it.
- Cannot find it beside the diesel inlet? Then look below the bonnet or inside your boot — the owner's manual says where.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park at Newton Abbot? Ask the person who drove it last before leaving, rather than when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Devon that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of A38, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park then switch off first.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- The two under one flap? Then make sure the lid on your diesel side is still shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Finish once that tank fills or the bottle is empty; until then, pour slowly using the built-in spout.
- Before starting the vehicle, shut the cap and check again that your diesel cap was never came off.
Discover during the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Stage five is out.
Gappah: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
The short order of things, beginning with no starting the motor. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the car on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
On a forecourt — BP, Texaco or another — the attendants will normally help push your car clear, if you ask. If you are on your own drive in Gappah, leave the vehicle where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. The next junction means the place to leave when you are on the M5, under 10 miles from Gappah. About how far did it go? Crossing Gappah is less work than a run of under 10 miles to Exeter, and so say.
Our arrival in Gappah, and what happens next
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Chudleigh Church of England Community Primary School, close to site of mansion or on your own driveway. Our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it's run, since the replies decide this work and our price. No one sets off before you have heard the price over the phone.
The system is then purged thoroughly, once your tank is drained. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Once your filter is flushed — or renewed, if needed — clean diesel goes in, and then the car gets tested. We don't leave until it has been started and is running properly.
Unstarted cars mostly mean a half-hour job from the moment we arrive. The kit is safe on a live filling station, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. Your insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Gappah and where it is
Gappah is a small locality in Devon, situated inland at an elevation of 54 metres, approximately 9.9 miles from Exeter. Gappah is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting the area's residential nature. Gappah lies near other local places such as Olchard, Combe, and Chudleigh Knighton, in the rolling countryside of the South West region.
AdBlue drains across Devon, Gappah included
Throughout TQ postcodes, our teams covering Gappah — a small village — work the nearby locations too, Chudleigh Knighton and Combe among them. A postcode starting TQ13 0 gets the van to you fastest.
Moving your car isn't necessary. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Riding Parks, a side street close to Ugbrooke House: our technicians drain the vehicle where it is. Awkward to explain, like the back of Finlake Riding School? By a border? Asking is better than guessing, so ring.
In short, for Gappah motorists
Tip no AdBlue till you've read the cap. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it wherever it stands, anywhere across Devon: switch the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103.