AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Lower Slade: Why It Happens and How to Prevent It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Lower Slade. Here before the event? In that case the rest explains how it happens and how to stop it ever happening.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Plenty of newer diesels around Ilfracombe, like those in Lower Slade, run on two fluids; the motor gets only the diesel. 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. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the arrangement on many vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in your boot instead. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up constantly. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. The mistake grows in the gap between them.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place around Lower Slade?
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things lining up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Higher Slade Road before work, or in the car park at Cook Island on the way home.
The old car's cap is where the hand reaches — but a hire car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is a second thing: an unfamiliar vehicle.
A spout-topped bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, after started, keeps on. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Lower Slade or out in Higher Slade.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Mullacott Cross or a forecourt around Lower Slade, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Check the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue caps are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally are not.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on many motors. Check for it.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Barnstaple? Ask the person who drove the vehicle last before leaving, not when the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
When the light comes on, anywhere in Devon, use this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Slade Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then check again — making sure your diesel cap stayed closed the whole time. Only then, start your car.
Find at step two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? So stop right there. Step five stays out.
Lower Slade: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Don't start your engine: that is how the short order of things starts. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is pulled from.
The staff at Murco, Total or any forecourt will usually lend a hand to push the vehicle clear when asked. At home in Lower Slade? So the vehicle stays put.
Already run? Stop once it's sensible, then turn off. The next junction means the place to leave if you're on the M4, under 50 miles from Lower Slade. Mileage counts — a quick hop across Lower Slade makes a smaller job than heading under 50 miles towards Swansea — so say about how far it went.
Our arrival around Lower Slade, and what occurs next
Our engineers come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Ilfracombe Infant and Nursery School, close to War Memorial or on your own driveway. The answers decide the work and our price, and so our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and if it has run. During the call itself, you are told the quote — ahead of anything else.
Draining your tank comes next, then a full flush of the fuel system. More than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: the crystals form, certain metals are attacked, and none of it clears out unaided, however long it is left. The filter flushed or, if it must be, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a check of the vehicle. The motor is fired up next and tested to confirm it runs correctly, all before our engineers leave.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where your motor has not run need about half an hour once our technicians arrive. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Lower Slade and where it is
Lower Slade is a small suburban area in Devon, situated on the coast at an elevation of around 85 metres. Lower Slade lies near several nearby places, including Higher Slade, Langleigh, and Lincombe, and is located approximately 30 miles from Swansea. Lower Slade has a population of around 949 people and is characterised by predominantly terraced housing. Lower Slade is also relatively distant from London, at a distance of 174 miles.
AdBlue drains in Lower Slade and across Devon
Being a residential suburb, Lower Slade has the same vans as nearby areas — Langleigh, Lincombe — right across EX postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Fastest of all: quote a EX34 8 postcode to the van.
Moving your car is not necessary. Wherever it sits — near Holy Trinity Parish Church, in a layby en route to Cairn Woodland Local Nature Reserve, on a drive — that's where it is cleared. Assuming doesn't help at the back of Encounter Church, on a border, or anywhere hard to describe; phone and check.
The short version for Lower Slade people
Before you tip, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave the car off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere across Devon.