AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Lee Mill: Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It
Stop reading for a moment if your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Lee Mill. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Not one liquid but two: that's how many modern diesels around Lee Mill and Burraton carry, with diesel feeding your motor. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the fumes to fresh them, from a separate tank.
There's a filler for each tank. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Filling the diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. It is in the gap that the slip lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place in Lee Mill
It's seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the car, and letting it run out means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off New Park Road, or at Westward Inn on the way home that evening.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing halts the tip once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It takes seconds, whether in Smithaleigh or bang in the heart of Lee Mill.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Be it a Lee Mill forecourt or a drive over in Corntown, spend a couple of seconds on these before any is poured in.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- On many vehicles, size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of vehicles have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Can't see it next to your diesel filler? Then look beneath the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook says where.
- The previous driver knows. Check when you collect a rental or fleet car — at Ivybridge's car park, perhaps — rather than once the light appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
When the light comes on, anywhere around Devon, follow this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of The Avenue.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — after you have found the filler and read it.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave it on.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Spot at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? Then stop right there. Don't carry on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Lee Mill?
Short list, then. Top of it: your engine stays off. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the car on. Filling up with diesel will not thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — Gulf, Tesco or any other — the staff will normally help push the car away, if you ask. Your own driveway in Lee Mill is the place it stays.
Where your engine has been run already, stop safely and switch the car off. On the M5, under 50 miles from Lee Mill, that means the next exit. A short hop across Lee Mill is a smaller job than a run towards Plymouth, under 10 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we turn up in Lee Mill, what occurs?
Our technicians come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Woodlands Park Primary School, near Lee Mill Congregational Church (EFCC) or on your own drive. What liquid was put in, the quantity, and if it ran: we ask because the answers set the work and price. No one sets off until you've had the quote by phone.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the entire system. With AdBlue that counts 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. The filter flushed or, where needed, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a test of your car. Before leaving, our technicians start the car and make sure that it is running smoothly.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour after our engineers get there, provided the motor has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a busy forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Lee Mill itself
Lee Mill is a small village in Devon, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 54 metres, with terraced housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Lee Mill lies close to the nearby villages of Smithaleigh, Venton, and Sparkwell, and is approximately 7.6 miles from Plymouth. Lee Mill has a population of around 565 residents, who live in a quiet riverside setting. Lee Mill is also relatively distant from London, at around 184.4 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Devon, Lee Mill included
Venton and Sparkwell are among the towns around Lee Mill, a village, that the same vans cover, over PL postcodes. Fastest of all: give a PL21 9 postcode to the van.
Moving the car is not needed. The drain happens on the spot, whether a drive, a street near St Austin's Priory Catholic Church, or a layby on the way to Bottle Park. Awkward to pin down, like the back of Sparkwell Village Hall? By a county line? Checking is better than guessing, so phone.
In short, for Lee Mill people
Always, the cap; then, the tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Devon, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway — and so leave the car off and call 0333 366 0103.