Torquay: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Keep your motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Usually, if your motor has not run, it is emptied and fully flushed where your car is in Torquay. The remainder of this page explains why it takes place and how to make sure it does not — useful if you're reading before it has happened.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Diesel feeds the engine — but plenty of current diesels driven around Torquay and Plainmoor hold another liquid as well. The exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to clean it, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, the diesel side gets filled constantly. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually goes in out of a bottle, poured by a driver who must stop and think which cap to use. The slip lives in that gap.
Torquay: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
On a drive off Lymington Road before work, or in the car park outside The Jolly Judge heading home: that's where the rushed top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and once it's empty, limp mode follows.
Then, the hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — since a rental car, a new motor or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
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 once it has started. Upton or the middle of Torquay: it is the same few seconds either way.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Torquay forecourt or a drive out in St Marychurch, spend a few seconds on these before any is poured in.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- Plenty of motors give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on many motors. Look for it.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Torre? Ask the person who drove the car last before leaving, not once the light goes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
The day the light comes on, anywhere across Devon, use this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Castle Circus.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — once you've found the filler and read it.
- The diesel cap stays on. When the two share a flap, make sure it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Finish once that tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour gently through the own spout.
- Close the cap, and look again — making sure the diesel filler stayed shut the whole time. After that, start your car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Skip step five entirely.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Torquay?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the motor. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the car on. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the base rather than mixing — and that is where your fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — Harvest Energy, Esso or any other — the attendants will usually help roll your car away, if you ask. On your own drive in Torquay? So the car remains put.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your motor has already run. Leave the M5 — under 15 miles out of Torquay — at the next junction. Mileage counts — a quick hop across Torquay is a smaller job than driving under 25 miles towards Exeter — so say roughly how far it went.
What happens when our engineers arrive around Torquay
Anywhere your car came to rest, be it by Ellacombe Church of England Academy, near Torquay Town Hall or at home, our van comes to it. The answers settle the work and our quote, so our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it has run. During the call itself, you hear the price — ahead of anything else.
The system is then cleaned thoroughly, once that tank is drained. More than with petrol, it counts here: crystals form, certain metals are attacked, and none of that clears out unaided, no matter how long it sits. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. After that our engineers fire it up and confirm it runs correctly before we go.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour after our engineers arrive, as long as your engine hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Before we get there, have a look at your policy; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Torquay, for a moment
Torquay is a coastal town situated in Devon, England, forming part of the Torbay area. It is located near the county town of Exeter and the city of Plymouth, with the neighbouring town of Paignton to the west. Torquay is known for its seaside setting, with Tor Bay providing a picturesque backdrop to the town. The town's proximity to other coastal settlements, including the fishing port of Brixham, adds to its charm.
Torquay and Devon: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout TQ postcodes, our teams that cover Torquay — a coastal town — work the nearby locations too, Ellacombe and Torre among them. Quote a postcode that starts TQ1 3, and our van arrives fastest.
There's no need to shift your car. Draining takes place on the spot, be it a driveway, a street by Upton Vale Baptist Church, or a lay-by towards Ellacombe Green. Awkward to explain, like the back of Torquay Central Library? Close to a county line? Asking is better than guessing, so ring.
For Torquay motorists, the short version
Tip no AdBlue until you've read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Keep the car switched off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Devon.