Mawla: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Pause here a minute when the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Mawla. The rest of this page explains why it occurs and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Not one fluid but two: that's how plenty of newer diesels near Mawla and Stencoose carry, with diesel feeding the motor. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, and there a spray cleans the gas.
Each tank comes with a filler of its own. Other vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have both side by side under one flap. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. Far less often, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
Mawla: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
Hurry comes from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off Mawla Lane End, or heading home in the car park outside the pub in the village.
Then, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — since a hire car, a new motor or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
Nothing stops the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's a few seconds, whether in Manor Parsley or right in the heart of Mawla.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Check these first, at a forecourt around Mawla or a drive out in Parc Erissey. Seconds, no more.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally don't.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- Can't see it next to your diesel filler? Then look beneath the bonnet or in the boot — the owner's manual will say where.
- The previous driver will know. Ask when you pick up a rental or fleet car — from Redruth's car park, perhaps — not once the light appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
The day the light comes on, wherever around Cornwall, use this routine.
- Pull in somewhere level, engine off, with time to spare — not rushing on the side of Coast to Coast.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both sit under a flap, make sure it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and look again that the diesel cap was never came off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Stage five is out.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Mawla already?
Do not start the motor: that's how the short order of things begins. Keep your ignition off as well, because on many diesels it alone starts your fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
The attendants at Texaco, Tesco or any forecourt will usually help pushing your car clear when you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Mawla.
Already started? Stop once it is safe, then turn off. Mawla sits over 50 miles from the M5; on it, take the first exit. A short hop across Mawla is a smaller job than a run towards Truro, under 10 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival in Mawla, and what happens next
Wherever your car came to rest, be it outside Mount Hawke Academy, near Mawla Methodist Church or at home, the van comes to it. Our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it has run, since those replies settle this work and the quote. During the phone call itself, you hear the quote — before dispatch.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the entire system. Much more than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: the crystals form, some metals corrode, and nothing washes away on its own, however long it is left. Once the filter is cleaned — or replaced, where needed — clean diesel is added, and finally the car gets tested. We don't leave until it has been started and is running correctly.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine hasn't run take roughly half an hour once we arrive. Nothing upfront; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — and so use the wait to check yours.
About Mawla
Mawla is a small coastal hamlet in Cornwall, situated near the city of Truro and overlooking the surrounding countryside from an elevation of 66 metres. Mawla lies within a short distance of several nearby places, including Manor Parsley, Laity Moor, and Menagissey. Mawla has a population of around 503 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
AdBlue drains in Mawla and across Cornwall
Mawla is a rural hamlet, and our vans that cover it also work the places around it, Laity Moor and Menagissey among them, across the TR postcode area. Give a postcode beginning TR16 5, and the van gets there quickest.
The car doesn't need to shift. Wherever it sits — near Wheal Peevor, on a layby en route to Radnor Golf and Leisure, on a drive — that is where it is drained. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of War Memorial, ring and ask rather than guessing.
In short, for Mawla motorists
Before you tip, read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave the vehicle switched off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, throughout Cornwall.