Sorley: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Keep your engine and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Around Sorley, finding it before your engine turns usually means draining and a thorough flush where it stands. The remainder of this page explains why it occurs and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you're reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads round Sorley and Loddiswell carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
There's a filler on each tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the layout on many cars. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. Diesel goes in at each filling station visit, week in, week out. Rarely topped up, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think what cap it needs. That gap is where the error lives.
Sorley: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things lining up at once.
Hurry comes from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off Sorley Lane, or heading home in the car park outside the pub in the village.
New-to-you motors come next, too. Rentals, new vehicles and company cars place their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap it used on the old one.
Lastly, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in just as easily, and once the tip starts, nothing stops it. Warcombe or the middle of Sorley: it is the same few seconds either way.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Churchstow or a forecourt around Sorley, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Many vehicles give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of cars have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check as you collect a rental or company car — at Ivybridge's car park, perhaps — rather than once the warning appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — anywhere it is across Devon — a routine to follow.
- Stop somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — never rushing on the side of Millers Path.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Discover at the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Skip step five entirely.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Sorley already?
Brief list, then. First: your motor remains off. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of that tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help roll the vehicle clear of the pump if you are at a forecourt — the Asda Express, the Texaco or anywhere else. If you are on your own drive in Sorley, leave the vehicle where it is.
Already run? Pull over when it's safe, then turn off. On the M5, under 50 miles from Sorley, that means the next exit. About how far did it go? Crossing Sorley is less work than a trip of under 25 miles towards Plymouth, so tell us.
When our technicians arrive in Sorley, what occurs?
Our engineers come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Loddiswell Primary School, near St Mary's Church or on your own driveway. What fluid was put in, the amount, and if it ran: our engineers ask because those answers decide the work and price. On the call itself, you are told the quote — before dispatch.
Then the tank is drained and the system rinsed thoroughly. Much more than with petrol, it counts here: the crystals form, certain metals are attacked, and none of that clears away on its own, no matter how long it sits. A test comes at the end: before that, clean diesel is added, and the fuel filter is cleaned or replaced as needed. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
If your motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Nothing in advance; you settle up on the day. At the end, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. It is worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Sorley and where it is
Sorley is a small hamlet in Devon, situated inland at an elevation of 98 metres, and is located near the villages of Warcombe and Hatch. Sorley is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Sorley sits within the wider countryside of the South West region, approximately 16 miles from Plymouth and 180 miles from London.
Sorley and Devon: AdBlue drains across the area
Over TQ postcodes, the teams that cover Sorley — a rural hamlet — work the nearby places too, Ledstone and Hatch among them. Quote a postcode beginning TQ7 4, and the van arrives fastest.
There's no need to move your car. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near Church Hall, a lay-by on the way to Higher Sturtlebury Wood, a drive. Guessing won't help behind Loddiswell Congregational Church, close to a boundary, or anywhere hard to describe; ring and ask.
Sorley motorists: the short version
Read the cap before you tip. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it wherever it stands, anywhere around Devon: keep it off then call 0333 366 0103.