St Just: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Normally, when your engine has not run, it is emptied and fully flushed where the car is in St Just. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Diesel goes to your motor — but plenty of modern diesels seen around St Just and Bosorne carry a second liquid as well. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler on each tank. Other cars put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot more place both together behind one flap. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. It is in that gap that the mistake happens.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around St Just: how it occurs
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from your car, and letting it run out means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Market Square, or at Kings Arms on the way home that evening.
Then the car is strange. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after started, carries on. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of St Just or out in New Downs.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these first, on a forecourt around St Just or a drive out in Bosavern. Seconds, that's all.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- Many cars fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Look inside your fuel flap: many cars carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler is if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Penzance, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
The day the light comes on, wherever in Cornwall, use this routine.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Market Street.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud while unscrewing it. It seems silly. It works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the 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.
- Shut the cap, and look once more — making sure your diesel cap remained shut the whole time. After that, start the car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Stage five stays off limits.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in St Just already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the motor. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels as soon as the ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Diluting it with more diesel fails, because AdBlue settles to the base rather than mixing — and that is where your fuel is drawn from.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it is the Trewellard Garage or the Gulf, ask the attendants to help push your car away from the petrol pump. On your own drive in St Just? Then the vehicle stays where it is.
Already run? Stop once it's sensible, then turn off. The next junction is the place to leave when you're on the M5, over 50 miles from St Just. Mileage counts — a quick hop across St Just makes a smaller job than heading under 50 miles to Truro — so say about how far it went.
When our engineers get there around St Just, what occurs?
By St Just Primary School, close to War Memorial or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, we come to it. Which fluid went in, the amount, and whether it ran: our technicians ask since the answers set the work and price. Nobody heads out before you have had the quote over the phone.
Then the tank is emptied and the fuel system purged thoroughly. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
Using pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor hasn't run need about half an hour after our technicians arrive. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both once the job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About St Just itself
St Just is a small town on the coastal edge of Cornwall, situated near the cliffs and beaches of the Atlantic coast. St Just sits at an elevation of around 127 metres, overlooking the surrounding countryside and the sea. St Just is characterised by its predominantly terraced housing and is located near other small settlements such as New Downs, Higher Bosavern, and Tregeseal. St Just is approximately 29 miles from the city of Truro and 260 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Cornwall, St Just included
Throughout TR postcodes, our teams covering St Just — a coastal town — work the surrounding locations too, Tregeseal and Higher Bosavern included. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting TR19 7.
There's no need to shift the car. Anywhere it stands — beside St Just Parish Church, in a layby heading to St Just Recreation Park, at home — that is where it is emptied. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Plain-an-Gwarry.
St Just motorists: the short version
Read the cap before you tip. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it stands, anywhere across Cornwall: keep the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.