Landkey: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Stop here for a moment if your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then call 0333 366 0103. Usually, when your engine hasn't turned, it is drained and fully cleaned where your vehicle is around Landkey. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Many modern diesels on the roads around Landkey and Harford carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. Its own tank holds it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where a spray cleans the gas.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that's the layout on a lot of cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Topping up your diesel side at the petrol pump happens constantly. The AdBlue side is topped up far less commonly, normally from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Landkey: how it takes place
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
Hurry comes from the warning. The vehicle warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off Blakes Hill Road, or on the way home in the car park at The Castle.
The old car's cap is where your hand goes — but a hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That's the second thing: a strange car.
A spout-topped bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, after begun, keeps on. Whether it takes place in Landkey Newland or the middle of Landkey, it's the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Hannaford or a forecourt around Landkey, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Position misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally do not.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of cars say there which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler sits if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Barnstaple, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
For the day the warning comes on — anywhere it is in Devon — a routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of The Orchards, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park then switch off properly.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Finish when the tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip slowly through the own spout.
- Close the cap, and check again — making sure your diesel cap stayed closed throughout. After that, start your car.
Find during the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Leave out stage five entirely.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Landkey already?
The short order of things, starting with no starting the engine. Leave the ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels it alone runs the fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it's the Tesco or the Esso, ask the attendants to help push the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. On your own drive around Landkey? So your car stays put.
When your motor has been run already, stop safely and switch the car off. Leave the M5 — under 50 miles out of Landkey — at the first junction. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Landkey makes a smaller job than heading under 50 miles to Exeter — so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we turn up in Landkey, what takes place?
Anywhere the car has stopped, be it outside Landkey Community Primary Academy, near Landkey Village Hall or on your own drive, the van travels to it. Both the work and the price depend on three replies — which liquid, which amount, and if it's run — so our engineers ask. You get that price on the phone, before anybody sets off.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the entire system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that counts more here than with petrol. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once our engineers get there, as long as your engine hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a busy forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. Nothing upfront; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. It's worth checking your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Landkey, for a moment
Landkey is a village situated in a riverside setting in Devon, with an elevation of around 36 metres. Landkey lies near the River Taw, approximately 31 miles from Exeter, and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Landkey is part of a wider network of nearby places, including Landkey Newland and Swimbridge Newland. Landkey has a population of around 1601 residents.
AdBlue drains across Devon, Landkey included
Being a village, Landkey has the same vans as nearby areas — Landkey Town, Swimbridge Newland — right across EX postcodes and the wider area beyond. Quote a postcode that starts EX32 0, and the van arrives fastest.
Shifting your car is not needed. Anywhere it sits — near War Memorial, on a lay-by en route to Millenium Green, at home — that's where it gets drained. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Landkey Sculpture, ring and ask rather than guessing.
In short, for Landkey motorists
Tip no AdBlue till you've read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, wherever across Devon: keep it off then ring 0333 366 0103.