Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Halwill Junction: Why It Occurs
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then set this page aside for now, leave the ignition and engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. In Halwill Junction, catching it before the motor turns normally means a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. Not happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page covers the why it takes place and the ways to prevent it altogether.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels in Langaford, like those in Halwill Junction, carry on two fluids; the motor gets just your diesel. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, and there spraying cleans the gas.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. Plenty of motors have a single flap for both, whereas some move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Filling the diesel side at the petrol pump happens constantly. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less regularly. It is in the gap that the slip happens.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur around Halwill Junction?
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the vehicle, and letting it run dry means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Station Road, or at the pub in the village on the way home after work.
Then, the hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — since a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip after it has started. It takes a few seconds, be it in Halwill or right in the centre of Halwill Junction.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt in Halwill Junction or a drive over in Landhill. A few seconds, that's all.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — plenty of motors show what goes in which inlet right there.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Okehampton? Ask the person who drove the vehicle last before leaving, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
Wherever in Devon the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Turn off after you park — level ground, engine off, and never in a rush beside Station Fields on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. When both share a flap, make sure it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Step five stays out.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Halwill Junction?
Brief order, then. Top of it: your motor remains off. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the car on. Diluting it with extra diesel won't work, since AdBlue settles to the bottom instead of mixing — and that is where the fuel is sucked from.
Ask the staff to help push your car away from the pump if you are at a forecourt — the the nearest petrol station, the another forecourt nearby or somewhere else. If you're on your own driveway around Halwill Junction, leave the car where it is.
Where the engine has been run by now, pull over somewhere safe and turn the vehicle off. Come off the M5 — under 50 miles out of Halwill Junction — at the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Halwill Junction is smaller work than a trip of under 50 miles towards Plymouth, so say.
Our arrival in Halwill Junction, and what happens next
Wherever the car came to rest, be it by Halwill Community Primary School, near St Peter and St James or at home, our van comes to it. Both the work and the price depend on three answers — which liquid, which quantity, and if it has run — so we ask. You hear that price on the phone, before anyone heads out.
Then your tank is drained and your system flushed thoroughly. 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 flushed or, if needed, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a check of the car. Before we go, our technicians fire it up and make sure that it's running correctly.
Using pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the engine hasn't run take roughly half an hour after we are there. The insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once the job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Misfuelling cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Halwill Junction itself
Halwill Junction is a village in Devon, situated near the River Torridge and surrounded by rolling countryside. Halwill Junction sits at an elevation of 184 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Halwill Junction is located near several nearby places, including Halwill, Beaworthy, and Stowford, and is approximately 28 miles from Plymouth. Halwill Junction has a population of around 598 people, making it a small but distinct community in the region.
AdBlue drains around Halwill Junction, and Devon beyond
Halwill Junction is a village, and our teams that cover it also work the places around it, Beaworthy and Stowford among them, across the EX postcode area. Give a postcode beginning EX21 5, and our van arrives fastest.
The vehicle doesn't need to move. Draining happens right there, be it a drive, a road by St Alban, or a layby on the way to Halwill Nature Reserve. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of St German's Church.
The short version for Halwill Junction motorists
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave it off then phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it stands, anywhere across Devon.