Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Barningham
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? In that case put this page down for now, leave your ignition and engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, carried out just where your vehicle stands in Barningham, is usually all it needs if caught before your motor runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
No single liquid but two: that's how many modern diesels near Barningham and Bowbeck run, with diesel feeding the motor. The exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the gas to clean them, from its own tank.
Each tank comes with a filler of its own. Plenty of vehicles have a single flap for both, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in at each forecourt call-out, week in, week out. Far less often, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. It's in that gap that the error lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Barningham: how it happens
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Church Road before work, or in the car park outside The Royal George on the way home.
Unfamiliar motors are next, too. Rentals, new cars and company cars put their fillers differently, and habit goes for the cap it 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 pour after it has started. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Barningham or out in Coney Weston.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Check these first, at a forecourt in Barningham or a driveway over in Stanton Chare. Seconds, no more.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Many motors give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Check inside the fuel flap: plenty of motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by the diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- 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 Harling Road.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Suffolk that is.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Mill Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- The two behind one flap? Then make sure the lid on the diesel filler stays shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the car, close the cap and look again that the diesel cap was never came off.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Don't go on to stage five.
Barningham: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Brief order, then. First: your motor remains off. Do not switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Diluting it with more diesel won't work, since AdBlue settles to the bottom rather than blending — and that's where your fuel is pulled from.
Ask the staff to help roll the car away from the petrol pump if you're at a forecourt — the Shell, the another forecourt nearby or somewhere else. At home around Barningham? So the car remains put.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your motor has already run. The next junction is where to come off when you are on the M11, under 50 miles from Barningham. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Barningham is less a job than a run of under 50 miles towards Norwich, so say.
What takes place when we get there in Barningham
By Barningham Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School, close to St Andrew, Barningham or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our engineers come to it. Both the work and our quote rest on three replies — what liquid, what quantity, and if it has run — so our engineers ask. On the call itself, you hear the price — ahead of dispatch.
After that: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that counts more here than with petrol. Once the filter is flushed — or renewed, where required — fresh diesel is added, and then your car is tested. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
Unstarted vehicles mostly mean a half-hour job after the moment we arrive. The equipment is safe on a live forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. The insurer will ask for an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Barningham itself
Barningham is a small village in Suffolk, situated inland at an elevation of 44 metres, with a mix of detached housing and rural landscapes. Barningham lies near the villages of Coney Weston, Market Weston, and Hepworth, and is approximately 25 miles from Norwich. Barningham remains a quiet residential community with a population of around 748 people. Barningham is also within commuting distance of larger cities, being around 73 miles from London.
Barningham and Suffolk: AdBlue drains across the area
Market Weston and Hepworth are among the towns around Barningham, a rural village, that the same teams cover, throughout IP postcodes. Fastest of all: give a IP31 1 postcode for the van.
There's no need to move the vehicle. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Barningham Village Sign, a lay-by on the way to Cricket Meadow, a drive. Assuming won't help behind Barningham Village Hall, close to a boundary, or somewhere awkward to pin down; ring and check.
For Barningham people, the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Keep the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, across Suffolk.