Woodford: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave the motor and ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Around Woodford, finding it before the engine turns normally means a drain and a full flush where it stands. Reading in advance? Then the rest covers why it happens and how to stop it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Many newer diesels around Longbridge, like those in Woodford, carry on two liquids; your engine takes only your diesel. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to clean it, from its own tank.
Each tank has a filler of its own. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on a lot of motors. On others, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in your boot instead. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. Seldom filled, AdBlue normally goes in from a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think what filler it needs. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank happen in Woodford?
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things coming up together.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from your car, and letting it run dry means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Longacre, or at The Colebrook Inn on the way home that evening.
Then your car is strange. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have 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 tip once it has started. Whether it happens in Colebrook or the middle of Woodford, it's the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Look at these first, at a forecourt around Woodford or a drive over in St Stephens Place. Seconds, that's all.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many motors have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows which it is if the filler is not next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Plymouth.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
On the day the light comes on — anywhere it is in Devon — a routine to follow.
- Pull in on level, motor off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of Farm Close.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It seems daft. It does the trick.
- The two under a single flap? Then make sure the lid on your diesel filler is still closed before raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, and look again — making sure the diesel filler remained shut throughout. After that, start your car.
Find during the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Don't go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Woodford?
Short order, then. First: the motor remains unstarted. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — so keep it off. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the staff to help push your car away from the pump if you are at a forecourt — the Texaco, the Sainsbury's or somewhere else. On your own drive around Woodford? Then the vehicle remains put.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. The next exit is where to come off if you are on the M5, under 50 miles from Woodford. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Woodford is less a job than a run of under 5 miles to Plymouth, so say.
Woodford: what happens when our engineers arrive
By Woodford Primary School, close to Plym Valley Railway or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, we come to it. What liquid was put in, the amount, and whether it ran: our technicians ask since the replies decide the work and price. No one heads out before you've had the price over the phone.
Then your tank is cleared and the system flushed thoroughly. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. The filter flushed or, if needed, swapped; fresh diesel in; then a test of the vehicle. Your engine is started next and checked to confirm it runs correctly, all before our technicians head off.
Unrun vehicles usually mean a half-hour visit from arrival. The kit is fine on a busy filling station, and hushed 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. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Woodford itself
Woodford is a suburban area in Devon, situated near the coast and approximately 3.6 miles from Plymouth. Woodford sits at an elevation of around 21 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation in the area. Woodford is close to nearby places such as Colebrook, Underwood, and Marsh Mills, and is home to a population of around 5300 residents.
AdBlue drains round Woodford, and Devon beyond
Over PL postcodes, our vans covering Woodford — a residential suburb — work the surrounding locations too, Marsh Mills and Underwood among them. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting PL7 4.
No need to move the car. Draining takes place right there, be it a driveway, a street near St Mary's Church, or a layby on the way to Boringdon Park Golf Club. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Colebrook Methodist Church, ring and ask rather than assuming.
In short, for Woodford drivers
First, the cap; after that, the pour. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, wherever in Devon: switch the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.