North Beer: 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 full flush, carried out just where your car stands in North Beer, is normally all it needs when found before the engine runs. The rest of this page covers why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds your motor — yet plenty of current diesels seen around North Beer and Langdon carry another fluid too. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. Many of cars have a single flap for the two, whereas some move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, the diesel side gets filled all the time. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually goes in from a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think what filler it needs. The mistake lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in North Beer: how it occurs
Carelessness rarely causes it. What does is three things lining up together.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the vehicle, and letting it run out means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off B3254, perhaps outside the pub in the village on the way home after work.
The old car's cap is where the hand reaches — but a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is the second thing: a strange car.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the pour after it has started. Bennacott or the middle of North Beer: it is the same few seconds in both.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A couple of seconds is all these take — so check them before you pour anything, on a driveway in West Curry or a forecourt around North Beer.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually is not. Read it instead of going by position.
- The size. On plenty of motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- Cannot see it next to your diesel inlet? Then look below the bonnet or in the boot — the owner's manual will say where.
- The previous driver will know. Ask when you collect a hire car or fleet car — from the nearest station's car park, perhaps — rather than when the warning appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Wherever around Cornwall the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Turn off once parked — flat ground, motor stopped, and never in a rush by Dorset Park on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud while unscrewing it. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, confirm it is shut before the bottle comes up.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting your car, shut the cap and look again that your diesel cap was never opened off.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Skip stage five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around North Beer?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting the engine. Don't switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of that tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help roll the vehicle away from the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the BP, the another forecourt nearby or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway in North Beer.
Already run? Pull over when it's sensible, then turn off. North Beer lies under 50 miles from the M5; there, use the next junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Plymouth, under 50 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across North Beer.
North Beer: what occurs when our engineers arrive
Our van comes to the car anywhere it stopped — your own driveway, near Church of the Holy Name, or outside Boyton Community Primary School. Our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has run, since those answers decide this work and our quote. No one sets off until you've heard our price by phone.
Emptying that tank comes next, then a full flush of the system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that counts more here than with petrol. Testing comes last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and your filter is flushed or changed as needed. Then we fire it up and check it runs smoothly before we leave.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once our technicians arrive, provided the engine hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. Your insurer will ask for the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Misfuelling cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About North Beer, for a moment
North Beer is a small hamlet situated on the banks of a river in Cornwall, with an elevation of around 132 metres. North Beer lies near several other small settlements, including Bennacott, Boyton, and Curry Lane, and is approximately 25 miles from Plymouth. North Beer has a population of around 522 people, who mostly reside in detached houses. North Beer is located in a rural area, about 193 miles west of London.
AdBlue drains round North Beer, and Cornwall beyond
Over PL postcodes, the vans covering North Beer — a rural hamlet — work the nearby spots too, Curry Lane and Boyton included. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting PL15 8.
There's no need to shift your car. Wherever it stands — near St Paternus, on a layby en route to Bradridge Copse, at home — that's where it gets cleared. Awkward to explain, like the back of St James, Luffincott? By a border? Asking is better than assuming, so ring.
For North Beer drivers, the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Keep the car off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, throughout Cornwall.