Ringmore: 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 your motor and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, done right where the vehicle sits around Ringmore, is usually all it needs when found before the motor runs. Not happened yet? Further down, the page covers the why it occurs and the how to avoid it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds the motor — yet many modern diesels seen about Ringmore and Stokeinteignhead hold a second fluid as well. The exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to clean them, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of vehicles have a single flap for the two, while others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled on each forecourt call-out, again and again. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less commonly. It's in that gap that the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place around Ringmore
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
On a driveway off Brookvale Orchard before work, or in the car park outside Shipwrights Arms heading home: that's where the hurried top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and once it is empty, limp mode kicks in.
New-to-you motors are second, as well. Hire cars, new cars and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and habit goes for the cap it used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it takes place in Shaldon or the middle of Ringmore, it's the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Whether a Ringmore forecourt or a drive over in Lower Rocombe, take a couple of seconds on these before any is poured in.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- On many motors, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Look for it.
- 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.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check as you collect a rental or fleet car — at Teignmouth's car park, say — not once the light appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
On the day the light comes on — wherever you are in Devon — a simple routine to follow.
- Not in a rush on the side of Orchard Close, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park then switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, yes, but it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both share a flap, confirm it is shut before the bottle comes up.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the car, close the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap never opened off.
Find at step two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? So stop right there. Step five is off limits.
Ringmore: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Don't start the engine: that is where the short order of things starts. Keep your ignition off too, since on many diesels it by itself runs your pump. Diluting it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue settles to the base instead of mixing — and that is where your fuel is sucked from.
The staff at Morrisons, Tesco or any forecourt will normally help pushing the vehicle away if asked. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Ringmore.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. The next junction is the place to leave if you're on the M5, under 10 miles from Ringmore. Mileage counts — a short hop across Ringmore makes a smaller job than heading under 15 miles towards Exeter — so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our engineers arrive around Ringmore, what happens?
We come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Shaldon Primary School, near Martin Gallery or on your own drive. What fluid got in, the quantity, and if it ran: we ask since those replies set the work and price. You get that price on the phone, before anybody heads out.
Emptying that tank comes next, then a thorough flush of your system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. Filter cleaned or, where it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; then a test of your vehicle. We don't leave until it has been started and is running smoothly.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where your motor hasn't run take roughly half an hour once our technicians are there. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It's worth checking your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Ringmore, briefly
Ringmore is a small suburban area in Devon, situated on the coast near the mouth of the Teign Estuary. Ringmore has a population of around 808 people and is characterized by predominantly detached housing. Ringmore is located near the towns of Shaldon and Teignmouth, and is approximately 12.8 miles from the city of Exeter. Ringmore sits at a low elevation of 19 metres above sea level, close to the sea.
AdBlue drains about Ringmore, and Devon beyond
Ash Hill and Teignmouth are among the towns around Ringmore, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, throughout TQ postcodes. Quote a postcode that starts TQ14 0, and our van arrives quickest.
Your car stays put. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Homeyards Botanical Garden, a side street near St Nicholas: our technicians drain the car where it sits. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of St Peter's Church.
Ringmore drivers: the short version
Always, the cap; then, the pour. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it stands, wherever in Devon: switch the car off then call 0333 366 0103.