Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Gummows Shop
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and your ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Gummows Shop. 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 car, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels in Chapel Town, as well as Gummows Shop, carry on two fluids; the motor gets only the diesel. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There is a filler on each tank. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place both side by side behind one flap. At the pump, the diesel side gets filled constantly. Much less frequently, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Gummows Shop: how it happens
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, the car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off A3058 before work, or in the car park at the pub in the village on the way home.
Unfamiliar cars come second, as well. Hire cars, new motors and company vehicles put their fillers in new places, and the hand goes for the cap it used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip once it has started. Tregonning or the heart of Gummows Shop: it is the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Gummows Shop forecourt or a driveway out in Summercourt, spend a couple of seconds on these before any goes in.
- Read the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue ones are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- On plenty of motors, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says which it lives if your filler is not next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Quintrell Downs? Ask whoever drove the car last before leaving, rather than when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
The day the light goes on, anywhere across Cornwall, use this routine.
- Not in a rush on the side of A30, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park and switch off properly.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both share a flap, make sure it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Discover at the second or third step that AdBlue went into the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Stage five stays out.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Gummows Shop?
Brief list, then. Top of it: the engine stays unstarted. Don't switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the attendants to help roll your car away from the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the Shell, the Morrisons or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Gummows Shop.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. Gummows Shop sits over 50 miles from the M5; there, use the next exit. About how far did it go? Hopping across Gummows Shop is smaller a job than a trip of under 10 miles towards Truro, and so tell us.
Gummows Shop: what takes place when our engineers arrive
Wherever your car came to rest, whether outside Summercourt Academy, near Dairyland Farm Park or on your own drive, the van travels to it. What fluid was put in, the amount, and if it ran: our technicians ask since the answers set both work and price. No one sets off before you have heard the price over the phone.
Next: a drain, then a thorough flush of the entire 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 doesn't wash out on its own. Testing comes last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is cleaned or replaced if necessary. The motor is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs correctly, all before we leave.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after our technicians arrive, provided the engine hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. It is worth checking your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Gummows Shop
Gummows Shop is a small locality in inland Cornwall, situated approximately 77 metres above sea level. Gummows Shop lies near the villages of Tregonning and Tredinnick, and is close to the settlement of Kestle Mill. Gummows Shop is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, and is located about 8 miles from the city of Truro.
AdBlue drains across Cornwall, Gummows Shop included
As a small village, Gummows Shop has the same vans as nearby areas — Tredinnick, Kestle Mill — right through TR postcodes and the wider area beyond. A postcode starting TR8 4 gets our van to you fastest.
There's no need to move the vehicle. Wherever it stands — near Trerice, on a layby heading to Thomas Playing Field, on a drive — that's where it is emptied. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of St Enoder, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Gummows Shop drivers: the short version
Read the cap before you tip. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it sits, anywhere across Cornwall.