Looe: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out right where the car sits around Looe, is usually all it needs if caught before the motor runs. Here before the event? Then the rest explains how it happens and how to prevent it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Diesel goes to the engine — but many newer diesels seen round Looe and Hannafore hold another liquid too. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank has one filler of its own. Some cars put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have both side by side under one flap. Diesel gets filled at each filling station visit, week in, week out. Rarely topped up, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think what filler to use. The error lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place around Looe
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a driveway off Castle Street before work, or in the car park at The Ship Inn on the way home: that's where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car tells you, and if it is gone, limp mode kicks in.
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 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, so nothing stops the tip once it has started. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Looe or out in East Looe.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Plaidy or a forecourt around Looe.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually isn't. Read it instead of going by position.
- On plenty of vehicles, size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it is when the filler is not next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at the nearest station? Check with whoever drove the vehicle last before leaving, rather than once the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Cornwall that is.
- Pull in somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — not rushing on the side of Fore Street.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, yes, yet it works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find during the second or third step that the bottle went in the diesel tank? That's where you stop. Don't go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Looe already?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting the motor. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch it on. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the staff to help roll your car away from the pump if you're on a forecourt — the Texaco, the another forecourt nearby or somewhere else. If you are on your own driveway in Looe, leave the car where it stands.
When your motor has been run already, stop safely then switch the vehicle off. Looe sits under 50 miles from the M5; on it, use the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Looe is less work than a run of under 15 miles towards Plymouth, and so say.
Looe: what happens when our engineers arrive
Outside Looe Primary Academy, close to Old Guild Hall or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Which liquid got in, the quantity, and if it ran: we ask because the answers decide both work and price. You hear that price by phone, before anyone heads out.
Then the tank is cleared and the system rinsed thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. A test is at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is flushed or changed if necessary. After that our engineers fire it up and make sure it runs properly before we go.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after we arrive, provided your engine hasn't run — and the pumps we use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Looe
Looe is a small coastal town in south-east Cornwall, situated on the southern coast of England. Looe sits at a low elevation of around 7 metres, looking out over the English Channel. Looe is made up of two main areas, East Looe and West Looe, which are connected by a bridge over the River Looe. Looe is a popular destination for tourists and locals alike, with many detached homes in the area.
Looe and Cornwall: AdBlue drains across the area
Being a coastal town, Looe shares its vans nearby places — Shutta, West Looe — right through PL postcodes and the surrounding area around them. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting PL13 1.
Moving your car is not necessary. Anywhere it sits — beside St Nicholas, in a layby heading to Wooldown, on a drive — that's where it is drained. Guessing doesn't help behind The Wooldown torch, on a border, or anywhere awkward to describe; phone and ask.
For Looe drivers, the short version
First, the cap; then, the pour. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Leave the vehicle switched off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, across Cornwall.