How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in West Clyst
Leave your motor and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain and a thorough flush, carried out right where your vehicle sits in West Clyst, is usually all it needs when caught before your engine runs. Here before the event? Then the rest explains why it comes about and what to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel feeds the engine — but plenty of modern diesels driven round West Clyst and Dog Village carry another liquid too. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler for each tank. Some motors put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place the two side by side under one flap. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. Seldom filled, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think what cap to use. The mistake grows in the gap between them.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs in West Clyst
It's rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Parkside Road before work, or in the car park at Heart Of Oak on the way home.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — yet a rental car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's a second thing: a new motor.
Nothing halts the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Pinhoe or the heart of West Clyst: it is the same few seconds either way.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Clyst Honiton or a forecourt around West Clyst, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- On many vehicles, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Cannot find it next to the diesel filler? In that case check below the bonnet or in the boot — the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask as you collect a rental or fleet car — from Pinhoe's car park, say — rather than when the light appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
The day the light comes on, wherever around Devon, follow this routine.
- Pull in on level, motor off, with time to spare — not rushing on the side of B3181.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It seems silly. It works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both sit under a flap, confirm it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to step five.
West Clyst: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with not starting the engine. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the vehicle on. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
The attendants at Murco, Sainsbury's or another forecourt will normally lend a hand pushing your car away when asked. At home around West Clyst? So the vehicle stays where it is.
Already run? Stop once it is sensible, then turn off. Leave the M5 — under a mile out of West Clyst — at the first junction. Distance counts — a short hop across West Clyst is a smaller job than heading under 5 miles towards Exeter — so say roughly how far it went.
West Clyst: what occurs when our technicians arrive
Anywhere the car has stopped, be it outside Westclyst Community Primary School, beside Iron Age settlement or at home, the van travels to it. Those replies determine this work and the quote, so our engineers ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it's run. That price comes over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Draining that tank comes next, then a full flush of your system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and neither washes out unaided. That is why it matters more. A test is last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and your filter is cleaned or changed as needed. After that we start the engine and confirm it runs smoothly before leaving.
If your motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to check yours.
About West Clyst and where it is
West Clyst is a village in Devon, situated on the River Clyst and located near the city of Exeter. West Clyst has a population of around 1565 people and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing. West Clyst sits at an elevation of 29 metres, close to the nearby villages of Pinhoe, Monkerton, and Poltimore. West Clyst is approximately 3.6 miles from Exeter and 153.8 miles from London, making it a riverside community with easy access to the city.
West Clyst and Devon: AdBlue drains across the area
Monkerton and Poltimore are among the towns around West Clyst, a village, that the same teams cover, over EX postcodes. Quote a postcode that starts EX1 3, and the van arrives quickest.
There's no need to shift the vehicle. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Moonhill Copse, a side street near UCZ Paintball Park: our technicians drain the vehicle where it stands. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Plymouth Brethren.
For West Clyst motorists, the short version
Always, the cap; then, the tip. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Leave it switched off and phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, throughout Devon.