Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Lyme Regis: Why It Happens
Stop here for a moment if your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then phone 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, carried out right where your car sits in Lyme Regis, is usually all it needs when caught before your engine runs. Reading before the event? Then what follows explains how it happens and what to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to the engine — yet many modern diesels seen about Lyme Regis and Uplyme hold another liquid as well. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side gets filled constantly. Much less commonly, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. Mistakes happen in that gap between the two.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Lyme Regis: how it occurs
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Broad Street before work, or in the car park at The Volunteer Inn on the way home.
New-to-you motors are next, as well. Hire cars, new cars and company cars place their fillers differently, and the hand goes for the cap used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, after begun, keeps on. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Lyme Regis or out in Cobb.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Holcombe or a forecourt around Lyme Regis, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it rather than going by position.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of cars mark which belongs in which inlet just there.
- The handbook says which it is if your filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Axminster, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
For the day the light appears — wherever you are around Dorset — a routine to use.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Silver Street.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two sit under a flap, confirm it's closed before the bottle comes up.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the car, close the cap and check again that the diesel cap never came off.
Spot at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? Then stop just there. Stage five stays out.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Lyme Regis already?
Don't start your engine: that is how the short order of things starts. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the vehicle on. Topping up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of your tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it is the Murco or the Harvest Energy, ask the attendants to help roll your car clear of the petrol pump. If you are on your own driveway in Lyme Regis, leave the vehicle where it stands.
Already run? Stop once it is safe, then switch off. Come off the M5 — under 25 miles out of Lyme Regis — at the first junction. A short hop across Lyme Regis is a smaller job than a run towards Exeter, under 50 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
Lyme Regis: what occurs when our engineers arrive
Wherever the vehicle came to rest, whether by St Michael's CofE Primary School, Lyme Regis, near Regent Cinema or on your own drive, our van travels to it. Our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run, because the answers decide the work and the quote. Nobody heads out before you've heard the quote over the phone.
Then the tank is emptied and your system rinsed thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither clears away by itself. That is why it counts more. Filter cleaned or, where it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a test of your car. Before we go, our engineers start the engine and check that it's running properly.
If the motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. No money in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Lyme Regis, briefly
Lyme Regis is a coastal town in south Dorset, situated on the English Channel coast at an elevation of around 32 metres. Lyme Regis lies near the Cobb, a historic harbour wall, and is close to the nearby settlements of Ware and Dragons Hill. Lyme Regis has a population of approximately 3741 people, predominantly living in detached housing. Lyme Regis is located 133.3 miles west of London and 26.1 miles southeast of Exeter.
AdBlue drains around Lyme Regis and across Dorset
Ware and Dragons Hill are among the places around Lyme Regis, a coastal town, that the same teams cover, over DT postcodes. A postcode starting DT7 3 gets the van to you fastest.
Shifting the car isn't needed. Wherever it stands — beside Lyme Regis Baptist Church, in a layby heading to Langmoor Gardens, at home — that is where it is drained. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Lyme Regis Library, ring and ask rather than assuming.
The short version for Lyme Regis drivers
Read the cap before you pour. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, wherever across Dorset: switch it off then phone 0333 366 0103.