St Newlyn East: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Keep your engine and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before your motor runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around St Newlyn East. The remainder of this page explains why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Not one liquid but two: that is how plenty of modern diesels around St Newlyn East and Carland Cross carry, with diesel feeding the motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
Every tank has a filler of its own. Many of motors have a single flap for both, whereas others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue usually goes in from a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think which cap it needs. The error lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in St Newlyn East: how it happens
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a driveway off Churchtown before work, or in the car park outside Pheasant Inn on the way home: that's where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car warns you, and once it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
Unfamiliar motors come next, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company cars place their fillers differently, and the hand goes for the cap it used on the old one.
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. Whether it takes place in Trevilson or the middle of St Newlyn East, it's the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Be it a St Newlyn East forecourt or a driveway out in Gwills, spend a few seconds on these before any goes in.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- On many vehicles, size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- A label inside your fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on many motors. Check for it.
- Cannot find it next to the diesel inlet? In that case check below the bonnet or in the boot — the owner's manual says which.
- The previous driver knows. Ask when you collect a hire car or company car — from Quintrell Downs's car park, perhaps — rather than once the warning appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Anywhere around Cornwall the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time to spare — never rushing on the side of Nanhayes Row.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud while unscrewing it. It sounds silly. It works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Find at the second or third stage that the bottle went into the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Never go on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in St Newlyn East?
Do not start your engine: that's where the short order of things starts. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch it on. Topping up with diesel won't weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Shell, Esso or another forecourt will normally lend a hand pushing the vehicle away if you ask. Your own drive in St Newlyn East is the place it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. Leave the M5 — over 50 miles out of St Newlyn East — at the first junction. A short hop across St Newlyn East is a smaller job than a run towards Truro, under 10 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
What happens when our engineers turn up around St Newlyn East
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside St Newlyn East Learning Academy, close to St Newlina or on your own drive. The replies settle the work and our price, so we ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. On the call itself, you are told the price — ahead of anything else.
After that: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. 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. Once the fuel filter is flushed — or replaced, where required — clean diesel goes in, and finally the vehicle gets tested. After that we start the engine and check it runs correctly before we go.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour after we arrive, as long as the engine hasn't run — and the pumps we use are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet at night beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About St Newlyn East itself
St Newlyn East is a village in Cornwall, situated inland at an elevation of 91 metres, approximately 7 miles from the city of Truro. St Newlyn East has a population of around 1038 people, predominantly living in detached houses. St Newlyn East is close to several nearby settlements, including Trevilson, Trevoll, and Rejerrah, and is about 228 miles west of London.
AdBlue drains around St Newlyn East, and Cornwall beyond
Being a rural village, St Newlyn East has the same vans as nearby areas — Trevoll, Rejerrah — all the way across TR postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Quickest of all: give a TR8 5 postcode to the van.
The car remains where it is. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near The Old Chapel, a lay-by on the way to St Francis Meadow Park, a drive. Tricky to explain, like the back of Trerice? By a county line? Asking is better than assuming, and so phone.
In short, for St Newlyn East people
Pour nothing till you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere around Cornwall.