Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
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Fri 14 May 2021 16:16
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - Steveieb

Interesting case in Telgraph Motoring in which a driver went to fill her Q8 , which has two tank fillers next to each other and poured Ad Blue directly into the diesel tank , instead of the separate tank which is adjacent and marked blue. The car ground to a halt and Audi charged £15500 to repair the car. Apparently Adblue poured into the diesel tank causes a massive amount of damage to the injectors, fuel lines etc. A salutary tale but only 30 cases have been reported to the AA. A call to them before driving off would have limited the damage to a drain and clean ! Audi refuse liability as one of the fuel caps is coloured blue and marked Adblue but is adjacent to the diesel cap.

Edited by Xileno on 16/05/2021 at 18:35

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Fri 14 May 2021 16:51
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - elekie&a/c doctor
No sympathy, I’m afraid . RTFM springs to mind .
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Fri 14 May 2021 17:21
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - movilogo

User error so can't blame anyone else.

Filler caps being side by side does not matter. One can still put wrong thing in wrong hole.

At least no such things to happen in petrol cars. May be better to restrict consumer cars to petrol and commercial vehicles to diesel only.

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Fri 14 May 2021 22:20
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - alan1302

At least no such things to happen in petrol cars. May be better to restrict consumer cars to petrol and commercial vehicles to diesel only.

Bizarre idea!

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Fri 14 May 2021 17:36
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - John F
The car ground to a halt and Audi charged £15500 to repair the car.

Ouch! That's considerably more than any of my personal cars (large Audis) cost. Are you sure there are two zeros?

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Fri 14 May 2021 19:18
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - RT

Adblue is 67.5% water so likely to be heavier than diesel - it would have sunk to the bottom of the tank and been picked up and pumped through to the engine - the High Pressure Fuel Pump on modern common rail engines have marginal lubrication, normally relying on additives in the fuel but running on what is essentially water will have wrecked the pump which is £2000 on its own - although I can't see how a £15 grand was amassed.

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Fri 14 May 2021 19:33
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - bathtub tom

Daughter poured anti-freeze into the washer bottle one Winter. I made her drain it out, slowly.

I suspect she's now learned the difference between coolant anti-freeze and washer additive.

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Fri 14 May 2021 23:39
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - focussed

There is course the small matter of why didn't the driver notice the "water in fuel" warning light on the dashboard? Every diesel has one, operated by a probe in the fine filter.

Again it's RTFM time!

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Fri 14 May 2021 23:29
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - Andrew-T

My only comments would be [a] that's a ridiculous repair cost and [b] putting the two fillers adjacent is asking for trouble.

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Fri 14 May 2021 19:41
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - barney100

What a price, I misfuelled a diesel with petrol once but realised before I started off. Surely diesel and add blue filling holes could be designed not to to accept the wrong nozzle, you can buy devices that achieve this....luckily my addable tank is in the boot.

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Fri 14 May 2021 19:48
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - Steveieb

The owner argued that it was accidental and they had paid extra for this cover. The insurer disagreed and closed the case leaving the couple to pay the garage for the repair.

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Sat 15 May 2021 11:09
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - John F

A moot point. Human frailty, on a spectrum ranging from 'an error of judgement' to 'pea-brained stupidity' often causes accidental damage. I suppose if she had left the handbrake off and it had rolled into a gatepost, the insurers would have paid up. Depending upon the small print I would have thought it might be worth investing in a Letter from her Solicitor....

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Sat 15 May 2021 11:48
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - Pondlife

Did the owner escalate to the financial ombudsman after the insurer declined the claim? If the repair cost was really £15,000 then appealing the insurer's decision would seem to be the obvious action.

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Sat 15 May 2021 15:58
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - Steveieb

Yes that’s the course of action they intend to take after the Telegraph failed to resolve the claim on their behalf.

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Sat 15 May 2021 16:44
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - Theophilus

I guess the insurer calculated that anyone who could justify buying an Audi Q8 would find £15,500 small change.

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Sat 15 May 2021 16:45
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - brum

Having the 2 filling points next to each other is a very stupid design decision. Ok if you are an engineer, or a motor mechanic or motor savvy person it doesn't cause much of a problem, but increasingly younger drivers are unaware of what the difference is.

When I almost bought a Seat Alhambra several years ago, (maybe around 2015 or earlier), the adblue filler was located in the boot on the opposite side to the diesel filling point. They have since moved it to the adjacent position.

The salesman at the time didnt know what adblue was or why there was a filling point in the boot. I had read about Adblue and it was enough to put me off buying the car, at the time only dealers could fill the adblue at a ridiculous price, that and the threat of the car not starting if the adblue ran too low and having to need recovery to a garage to refill and reset the system.

www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/fleet-industry-news/2018/...r

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Sat 15 May 2021 17:40
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - RT

Having the 2 filling points next to each other is a very stupid design decision. Ok if you are an engineer, or a motor mechanic or motor savvy person it doesn't cause much of a problem, but increasingly younger drivers are unaware of what the difference is.

When I almost bought a Seat Alhambra several years ago, (maybe around 2015 or earlier), the adblue filler was located in the boot on the opposite side to the diesel filling point. They have since moved it to the adjacent position.

The salesman at the time didnt know what adblue was or why there was a filling point in the boot. I had read about Adblue and it was enough to put me off buying the car, at the time only dealers could fill the adblue at a ridiculous price, that and the threat of the car not starting if the adblue ran too low and having to need recovery to a garage to refill and reset the system.

www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/fleet-industry-news/2018/...r

The "threat" of the car not starting if out of Adblue is mainly theoretical - cars give a 1500 mile warning and then count down as those miles are used up - anyone silly enough to ignore the warning is asking for trouble.

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Sat 15 May 2021 17:45
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - bathtub tom

The "threat" of the car not starting if out of Adblue is mainly theoretical - cars give a 1500 mile warning and then count down as those miles are used up - anyone silly enough to ignore the warning is asking for trouble.

People don't run out of fuel, do they?

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Sat 15 May 2021 18:01
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - brum

My understanding is that restart is disabled well before you run out of adblue. It starts bleating at 1500 miles, how many people would fill up their car if it says only 1500 miles left? Here is VW's explanation

How will I know if the system needs topping-up?

A series of warnings will be given via the driver information system, accompanied by advice/messages.

The first message is displayed when the remaining range is approximately 1,500 miles1, and is repeated every 62 miles until the range reaches 1,000 miles, at which point the warning turns amber. This warning is repeated every 31 miles and is accompanied by an audible tone. If these warnings are not acted upon, the warning turns red; once this happens the car will not restart once the ignition is turned off. This is not a fault, but a required feature of the system. If this stage is reached the system will need a full top-up before the car can be restarted. Further information is available in the vehicle handbook

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Sat 15 May 2021 20:21
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - RT

The "threat" of the car not starting if out of Adblue is mainly theoretical - cars give a 1500 mile warning and then count down as those miles are used up - anyone silly enough to ignore the warning is asking for trouble.

People don't run out of fuel, do they?

You don't get a 1500 mile countdown with fuel - but some people can't be helped.

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Sat 15 May 2021 21:43
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - Engineer Andy

Yes that’s the course of action they intend to take after the Telegraph failed to resolve the claim on their behalf.

I bet that owner, as well as their fuel tank, was royally peed off.

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Sat 15 May 2021 22:32
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - Ethan Edwards

15K repair bill? For most of us that's throw the car away and get another one. So this sounds like rich people problems to me. Guess the Audi ZXQ99 or whatever is hugely expensive.

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Fri 25 Feb 2022 20:08
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - Steveieb

Just read in todays Telegraph that the Audi owner was refused a insurance claim for the repair even when the company was approached by the Telegraph consumer champion. It counted as one of their biggest failures.

The companies name features in the article if you are interested but there is a pay wall if you are not a subscriber

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Sat 26 Feb 2022 08:29
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - kiss (keep it simple)

As I have said before, although 15k for a new Tesla battery is steep, there are plenty of things that can fail on an IC car and run up that sort of bill, especially when you are in premium motoring territory.

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Sat 26 Feb 2022 09:58
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - Terry W

Surely Q8 owners simply run their cars into the dealer when the ad-blue needs a top up.

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Sat 26 Feb 2022 11:50
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - Steveieb

You would think so Terry, but the owner simply filled the ad blue into the diesel tank by mistake.

Im sure LV or NFU would have been more sympathetic to the claim. You only know how good an insurance company is when you make a claim.

But it’s unusual to have a request from the Telegraph turned down. They have helped readers claim back over £2 million pounds in a year when originally turned down.

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Sat 26 Feb 2022 16:38
Missfueling Ad Blue into the diesel tank - John F

I would be interested to see an itemised breakdown of the damage and repair costs. Adblue is mainly water and about as corrosive as concentrated urine. If it was quickly flushed out of the fuel lines and injectors, would it really have caused that much damage? I suspect Audi are taking the p***.......

Edited by John F on 26/02/2022 at 16:38

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