Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Higher Town
Keep your engine and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain and a full flush, done right where your car sits around Higher Town, is normally all it needs when found before the engine runs. Here before the event? In that case what follows covers how it comes about and what to prevent it ever happening.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Plenty of newer diesels around Buckfast, as well as Higher Town, carry on two fluids; the engine gets just the diesel. Its own tank holds it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where spraying cleans the gas.
Each tank has a filler of its own. Many of motors have a single flap for the two, whereas others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in at each filling station call-out, again and again. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally goes in from a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think which filler it needs. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank happen around Higher Town?
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a driveway off Oaklands before work, or in the car park outside Globe Inn on the way home: that's where the rushed top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the vehicle warns you, and if it's empty, limp mode follows.
Then, your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old car — since a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere 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, so nothing stops the pour after it has started. Glebelands or the heart of Higher Town: it takes the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these first, at a forecourt in Higher Town or a drive over in Lower Dean. A few seconds, that's all.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Check for it.
- Can't see it beside the diesel inlet? In that case look below the bonnet or inside your boot — the owner's manual says where.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check when you collect a hire car or fleet car — from Totnes's car park, perhaps — rather than once the warning comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
The day the light goes on, anywhere around Devon, use this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Oaklands Road.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you have found your filler and read it.
- The two behind one flap? So confirm the cap on the diesel filler is still closed before raising the bottle.
- Finish when that tank fills or the bottle runs dry; before that, pour gently using the own spout.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't carry on to step five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Higher Town already?
The short order of things, beginning with not starting your motor. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch it on. Topping up with diesel will not weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of that tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Dart Garage Ltd., Shell or another — the staff will usually help roll your car away, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Higher Town.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Come off the M5 — under 25 miles out of Higher Town — at the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Higher Town is less work than a run of under 25 miles towards Plymouth, so tell us.
When our engineers turn up in Higher Town, what occurs?
By Buckfastleigh Primary School, near Buckfastleigh Sports Club or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our engineers come to it. What fluid got in, the amount, and whether it ran: our engineers ask since the answers set the work and quote. Nobody heads out before you have heard the quote over the phone.
Emptying the tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more here than with petrol. After your filter is cleaned — or renewed, if needed — clean diesel goes in, and then the car gets tested. After that our technicians fire it up and check it runs properly before we go.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour after we arrive, provided the motor has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet at night beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It is worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Higher Town and where it is
Higher Town is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Devon, with a mix of terraced housing and a population of around 1660 residents. Higher Town sits at an elevation of 87 metres, close to the nearby settlements of Glebelands and Lower Town. Higher Town is located near the town of Buckfastleigh and is approximately 17.5 miles from Plymouth, the nearest city. Higher Town is part of the wider South West region, about 174 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Devon, Higher Town included
Higher Town is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the places near it, Lower Town and Buckfastleigh among them, across the TQ postcode area. Fastest of all: quote a TQ11 0 postcode for the van.
Your car does not need to shift. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near St. Benedicts, a lay-by on the way to Hillah Wood, a driveway. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Church of the Christian Community.
Higher Town drivers: the short version
Tip nothing until you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere around Devon.