How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Hartley Vale
Pause reading a minute when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, done right where the car sits in Hartley Vale, is usually what it needs when found before the motor runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Diesel feeds your engine — but plenty of current diesels seen round Hartley Vale and Eggbuckland carry a second liquid too. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
Each tank has its own filler. Some cars put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others have both side by side under one flap. Filling the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think which filler to use. That gap is where the error lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur around Hartley Vale?
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
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 driveway off Leigh Court before work, or in the car park outside The Golden Hind on the way home.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand gets to for the cap it would have 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, and so nothing stops the pour once it has started. It's seconds, be it in Hartley or right in the centre of Hartley Vale.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Mannamead or a forecourt in Hartley Vale, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually do not.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many vehicles have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler is if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Plymouth.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — wherever it is in Devon — a simple routine to follow.
- Switch off once parked — flat ground, engine off, and never rushed beside The Parkway 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 two under a single flap? So make sure the lid on the diesel side stays closed ahead of raising the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, shut the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap was never opened off.
Find at the second or third step that the bottle went into the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Never go on to step five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Hartley Vale?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the motor. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the vehicle on. Diluting it with more diesel won't work, since AdBlue settles to the base rather than mixing — and that's where your fuel is sucked from.
Ask the staff to help roll the car clear of the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the Esso, the Texaco or anywhere else. Your own drive in Hartley Vale is the place it should stay.
Where the motor has been run by now, stop somewhere safe then turn the car off. Leave the M5 — under 50 miles out of Hartley Vale — at the next junction. A short hop across Hartley Vale is a smaller job than a run towards Plymouth, under 3 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Hartley Vale: what occurs when we get there
Our engineers come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Eggbuckland Vale Primary School, near William Sutton Village Hall or on your own drive. Which liquid went in, the quantity, and if it ran: we ask because the replies set both work and price. The quote comes over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Draining your tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and neither washes out unaided. Hence it matters more. Once your filter has been cleaned — or replaced, if required — clean diesel is added, and finally your car is tested. Then we fire it up and check it runs correctly before leaving.
If your motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Hartley Vale itself
Hartley Vale is a suburban area situated on the coast of Devon, near the city of Plymouth. Hartley Vale lies at an elevation of 52 metres, with its semi-detached housing stock reflecting the residential character of the area. Hartley Vale is close to nearby places such as Hartley, Higher Compton, and Lower Compton, and is home to a population of around 5237 people. Hartley Vale is located approximately 190 miles from London, but its proximity to Plymouth makes it a more locally focused community.
AdBlue drains around Hartley Vale and across Devon
Throughout PL postcodes, the teams covering Hartley Vale — a residential suburb — work the nearby places too, Lower Compton and Higher Compton among them. Quickest of all: quote a PL6 5 postcode for the van.
No need to shift the vehicle. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Trinity, a lay-by on the way to Parkway Wood, a driveway. Awkward to pin down, like the back of St Edward's Church? Close to a county line? Checking beats assuming, so phone.
For Hartley Vale motorists, the short version
Always, the cap; after that, the tip. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave the car off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it stands, anywhere across Devon.