Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Thornehillhead: Why It Occurs
Leave your motor and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Around Thornehillhead, finding it before the engine turns usually means draining and a thorough flush on the spot. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
No single liquid but two: that's how many newer diesels near Thornehillhead and Withacott run, with diesel for your engine. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank has one filler of its own. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at each filling station visit, again and again. Seldom filled, AdBlue usually goes in from a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think which cap to use. It's in the gap that the slip lives.
Thornehillhead: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off A388 before work, or in the car park outside the pub in the village on the way home.
The old car's cap is where your hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That's a second factor: a new vehicle.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip once it has started. It takes seconds, whether in Tythecott or right in the centre of Thornehillhead.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these first, at a forecourt in Thornehillhead or a driveway over in Lower Twitchen. A few seconds, no more.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- On many cars, size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of cars say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says which it is when your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Chapleton.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Devon that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Beech Road, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off first.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you've found the filler and read it.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap never came off.
Discover during the second or third step that the bottle went in the wrong tank? That's where you stop. Do not go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Thornehillhead?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels as soon as the ignition goes on — so keep it off. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it's the the nearest petrol station or the another forecourt nearby, ask the attendants to help push the car clear of the petrol pump. If you are on your own driveway in Thornehillhead, leave the vehicle where it sits.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. The next junction means where to come off when you are on the M5, under 50 miles from Thornehillhead. About how far did it go? Hopping across Thornehillhead is less work than a run of under 50 miles to Exeter, so say.
What happens when our engineers get there around Thornehillhead
Our van comes to your car wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside St Michael's Church, or by Langtree Community School and Nursery Unit. The answers settle this work and our quote, so we ask what was put in, about how much, and if it's run. No one heads out before you've had the price over the phone.
After that: draining, then a full flush of the whole system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and none of that washes out by itself. Hence it counts more. Filter flushed or, if needed, replaced; clean diesel in; then a check of your car. Before leaving, our technicians start the car and check that it's running properly.
Unstarted vehicles mostly need a half-hour job after arrival. The equipment is fine on a busy filling station, and quiet enough for a residential street after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Thornehillhead and where it is
Thornehillhead is a small locality in inland Devon, situated at an elevation of 191 metres, and is approximately 34.6 miles from Exeter. Thornehillhead is characterised by its predominantly detached housing and is close to nearby places such as Tythecott and Eckworthy. Thornehillhead has a population of around 520 people and is located in a rural area of the South West region. Thornehillhead is also relatively distant from London, at a distance of 183.1 miles.
AdBlue drains across Devon, Thornehillhead included
Being a small village, Thornehillhead shares its vans surrounding places — Eckworthy, Stibb Cross — all the way through EX postcodes and the wider area beyond. Give a postcode that starts EX39 5, and the van arrives fastest.
Shifting the vehicle is not necessary. Anywhere it sits — beside The Bible Christian Chapel, on a layby en route to Longclose Copse, on a drive — that is where it is cleared. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of All SaintsChurch, ring and ask rather than guessing.
In short, for Thornehillhead drivers
Pour nothing until you have read the cap. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it wherever it stands, anywhere in Devon: switch the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.