AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Babel Green: Why It Happens and How to Stop It
Keep your motor and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Usually, if your engine hasn't turned, it's drained and thoroughly flushed where the car sits in Babel Green. Nothing happened yet? Below, the rest of the page covers the why it takes place and the ways to prevent it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many newer diesels around Brockley Green, as well as Babel Green, carry on two liquids; the motor gets just your diesel. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank comes with a filler of its own. Other cars put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place both together behind one flap. At the petrol pump, the diesel side gets filled all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think which cap it needs. That gap is where the slip lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place in Babel Green?
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Valley Wash before work, or in the car park at Rose and Crown on the way home.
Unfamiliar vehicles come next, as well. Hire cars, new cars and company cars place their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after begun, keeps on. Whether it happens in Hundon or the middle of Babel Green, it's the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Babel Green forecourt or a driveway over in Barnardiston, take a few seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally isn't. Read it instead of going by position.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of cars carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler is if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Dullingham, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Suffolk that is.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, engine stopped, and not rushed by Galley Road on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It sounds silly. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the vehicle on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then look once more — making sure the diesel cap stayed closed the whole time. Only then, start the car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Step five is off limits.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Babel Green already?
Brief list, then. Top of that: your motor stays off. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — and so leave it off. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it is the the nearest petrol station or the Thurlow Motors, ask the attendants to help roll the car away from the petrol pump. On your own drive in Babel Green? Then the car remains put.
Where the motor has run by now, pull over safely and turn the car off. The next exit is where to come off if you are on the M11, under 15 miles from Babel Green. About how far did it go? Hopping across Babel Green is smaller work than a trip of under 25 miles to Cambridge, so tell us.
Babel Green: what happens when our technicians turn up
Anywhere the vehicle has stopped, whether outside Hundon Community Primary School, near Hundon Village Hall or on your own drive, the van comes to it. Which liquid went in, the amount, and if it ran: our engineers ask since the replies set the work and price. You get that quote by phone, before anybody sets off.
Then the 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, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. Testing comes at the end: before that, clean diesel is added, and the filter is cleaned or replaced as needed. We don't leave until it has been started and is running smoothly.
Unstarted cars usually need a half-hour visit from the moment we arrive. The kit is fine on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a driveway after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It's worth looking at your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Babel Green
Babel Green is a small hamlet in Suffolk, situated inland at an elevation of 79 metres, and is located near the villages of Hundon and Chimney Street. Babel Green comprises predominantly detached housing and is home to a population of around 560 residents. Babel Green is positioned approximately 18.5 miles from Cambridge and 50.2 miles from London, making it a rural community within commuting distance of these cities. Babel Green sits in a landscape of rolling hills and arable farmland, typical of the Suffolk countryside.
AdBlue drains across Suffolk, Babel Green included
Babel Green is a rural hamlet, and our teams that cover it also work the towns near it, Chimney Street and Mount Pleasant among them, across the CO postcode area. Quote a postcode that starts CO10 8, and the van gets there fastest.
Your car does not need to shift. Anywhere it sits — near Hundon Village Sign, in a lay-by heading to Three Cocked Hat, on a drive — that is where it gets cleared. Assuming doesn't help at the back of Hundon War Memorial, close to a border, or anywhere awkward to describe; phone and ask.
Babel Green drivers: the short version
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere around Suffolk, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless — so leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103.