Belton: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then put this page down a moment, leave the ignition and engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Usually, if the motor hasn't turned, it's drained and fully cleaned where your vehicle is around Belton. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many newer diesels around Bradwell, as well as Belton, carry on two fluids; your engine takes only the diesel. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to clean it, from a separate tank.
There's a filler for every tank. Some vehicles put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have the two together under one flap. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. The AdBlue side is filled far less frequently, usually from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in that gap that the error lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Belton: how it takes place
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
Hurry follows from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off Station Road South, or heading home in the car park at The Tavern.
Next, the hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old car — because a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
Lastly, the spout goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in as readily, and once the pour starts, nothing stops it. Browston Green or the middle of Belton: it is the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A couple of seconds is all these take — so check them before you tip anything, on a drive in St Olaves or a forecourt in Belton.
- Check the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- On many motors, size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Check inside the fuel flap: plenty of motors have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler is if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask as you collect a rental or company car — from Berney Arms's car park, perhaps — not once the warning appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
The day the light goes on, wherever across Norfolk, use this routine.
- Not in a rush on the side of Sandy Lane, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- The diesel cap remains on. When both sit under a flap, confirm it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Finish when your tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; before that, pour gently using the built-in spout.
- Shut the cap, and look again — confirm your diesel cap remained shut throughout. After that, start the car.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? Then stop right there. Step five stays off limits.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Belton already?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting the engine. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel won't dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of your tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help roll your car clear of the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Morrisons, the Esso or somewhere else. If you're on your own driveway in Belton, leave the car where it sits.
Already run? Stop when it's sensible, then turn off. The next junction means where to leave if you are on the M11, over 50 miles from Belton. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Belton is smaller work than a trip of under 25 miles towards Norwich, and so say.
Our arrival around Belton, and what occurs next
Wherever your car has stopped, whether outside Moorlands CofE Primary Academy, beside The John Green Institute or on your own drive, the van travels to it. The answers decide this work and our quote, so our engineers ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it has run. You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out.
Then that tank is emptied and the system cleaned thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Before we go, our technicians fire it up and check that it's running properly.
If the engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. It's worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Belton itself
Belton is a village in Norfolk, situated inland at a low elevation of around 5 metres, and is located near the communities of Browston Green, Burgh Castle, and Fritton. Belton lies approximately 15.9 miles from Norwich and 105.3 miles from London, and its population of around 1760 people reside predominantly in semi-detached housing. Belton remains a small, rural community with a strong sense of local identity.
AdBlue drains around Belton and across Norfolk
Belton is a rural village, and our teams that cover it also work the towns near it, Burgh Castle and Fritton among them, across the NR postcode area. Give a postcode that starts NR31 9, and the van gets there fastest.
The car stays put. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Caldecott Hall, a side street close to All Saints: our technicians drain it where it sits. Assuming doesn't help at the back of Tumulus. Mill Hill Bowl Barrow, on a boundary, or somewhere awkward to pin down; ring and check.
Belton people: the short version
Pour nothing until you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere in Norfolk, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — and so leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.