Polsloe: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Pause here for a moment if your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Usually, when your motor has not run, it's drained and fully purged where the car is around Polsloe. The remainder of this page explains why it occurs and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you are reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to your motor — yet plenty of current diesels driven around Polsloe and Newtown carry another fluid too. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Different tanks, separate fillers. 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 petrol pump, the diesel side gets filled constantly. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. The slip lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur around Polsloe?
Carelessness seldom explains it. What does is three things lining up together.
Hurry comes from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off St Anne's Road, or heading home in the car park at Henry's Bar.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Third, the bottle fits: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in just as readily, and after the tip starts, no part halts it. Whether it occurs in Polsloe Priory or the middle of Polsloe, it's the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A few seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Stoke Hill or a forecourt in Polsloe.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- The size. On plenty of motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many vehicles have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Polsloe Bridge, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
When the light goes on, wherever around Devon, follow this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Pinhoe Road.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — after you have located your filler and read it.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both share a flap, make sure it's shut before the bottle comes up.
- Stop when your tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; before that, pour slowly using the built-in spout.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Discover during the second or third stage that the bottle went in the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Never go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Polsloe already?
Do not start the engine: that's how the short order of things starts. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the car on. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it is the Morrisons or the Esso, ask the staff to help roll the vehicle away from the pump. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Polsloe.
Where the motor has run by now, stop safely then switch the vehicle off. On the M5, under 3 miles from Polsloe, that means the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Polsloe is smaller a job than a trip of under 3 miles to Exeter, so tell us.
What occurs when we get there around Polsloe
We come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Ladysmith Junior School, near St. Mark's Church or on your own driveway. Which liquid got in, the quantity, and if it ran: we ask since the answers decide the work and quote. You hear that price by phone, before anybody heads out.
The fuel system is then flushed thoroughly, once the tank is emptied. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. We do not go until it has been started and is running correctly.
If the engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Your insurer will ask for the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both once the job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. It is worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Polsloe itself
Polsloe is a suburban area located on the outskirts of Exeter in Devon, sitting alongside the River Exe at an elevation of around 55 metres. Polsloe is characterized by its predominantly terraced housing stock and is situated close to notable local landmarks such as Polsloe Priory and Polsloe Bridge. Polsloe is a relatively densely populated area with a population of approximately 11576 residents. Polsloe benefits from its proximity to the city of Exeter, being just 1.1 miles away from the city centre.
AdBlue drains in Polsloe and across Devon
Throughout EX postcodes, our teams covering Polsloe — a residential suburb — work the nearby places too, St James and Polsloe Bridge included. Give a postcode beginning EX1 2, and our van arrives quickest.
No need to move the car. We drain it where it is — a side street near Dissenters' chapel, a lay-by on the way to Priory Road Park, a drive. Assuming doesn't help at the back of World War I memorial, close to a boundary, or somewhere awkward to describe; ring and ask.
The short version for Polsloe drivers
Pour no AdBlue until you've read the cap. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it stands, anywhere around Devon: keep it off and phone 0333 366 0103.