Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Gracca: Why It Happens
Keep your motor and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain plus a thorough flush, done right where the vehicle stands around Gracca, is normally what it needs if found before the engine runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Plenty of newer diesels in Woon, as well as Gracca, carry on two fluids; the motor gets just the diesel. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, and there spraying treats the gas.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. Seldom topped up, AdBlue normally goes in out of a bottle, poured by a driver who must stop and think which cap to use. The mistake grows in that gap between them.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place in Gracca?
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the vehicle, and letting it run out leads to limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Valley View Park, perhaps at The Bugle Inn on the way home that evening.
Next, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old motor — since a hire car, a new car or a company car places the fillers where your last one did not.
Third, the spout fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in just as easily, and once the tip starts, nothing halts it. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Gracca or out in Molinnis.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these first, at a forecourt around Gracca or a drive out in Hallew. Seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually is not. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of vehicles have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by the diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Bugle? Ask the person who drove it last before you set off, not once the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
For the day the light appears — wherever it is across Cornwall — a simple routine to use.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time to spare — never rushing on the side of Station Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, yet it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Shut the cap, and check once more — confirm your diesel filler remained closed throughout. Only then, start the car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Step five stays out.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Gracca?
Do not start the engine: that is how the short order of things starts. The fuel pump runs on many diesels the moment the ignition goes on — and so keep it off. Thinning it with more diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of blending — and that's where the fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, Shell or any other — the staff will usually help push your car away, when you ask. On your own drive in Gracca? So your car remains where it is.
Where the engine has been run by now, stop safely and turn it off. The next junction is where to come off when you're on the M5, over 50 miles from Gracca. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Truro, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Gracca.
What takes place when we arrive around Gracca
Anywhere your car came to rest, be it outside Bugle School, beside Bugle Methodist Church or on your own drive, our van comes to it. Both the work and our quote depend on three replies — which liquid, which amount, and whether it has run — so our technicians ask. You get that price on the phone, before anyone heads out.
Then that tank is drained and the fuel system purged thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Then our engineers start the car and make sure it runs correctly before we go.
If your engine 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. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — and so use the wait to check yours.
About Gracca itself
Gracca is a locality in Cornwall, situated inland at an elevation of 131 metres, approximately 14.8 miles from Truro. Gracca is characterized by its semi-detached housing and is located near other small places such as Molinnis, Bugle, and Bilberry. Gracca has a population of around 1486 residents and is part of the wider Cornish countryside.
Gracca and Cornwall: AdBlue drains across the area
Bugle and Bilberry are among the places near Gracca, a small village, that the same teams cover, throughout PL postcodes. Quickest of all: quote a PL26 8 postcode for our van.
The vehicle does not need to shift. Anywhere it stands — beside Crossroads Community Hall, on a layby en route to Common Lands, on a drive — that's where it is cleared. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Library of Things, ring and ask instead of assuming.
The short version for Gracca people
Tip nothing until you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave the car off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it sits, anywhere across Cornwall.