Blakeney: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave your engine and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. In Blakeney, finding it before the engine runs normally leaves draining and a thorough flush where it stands. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Diesel feeds your engine — but many newer diesels seen about Blakeney and Newgate hold a second fluid as well. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler for every tank. Some cars put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot more place the two side by side under one flap. Filling your diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less regularly, normally from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the slip lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Blakeney: how it occurs
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off New Road before work, or in the car park outside King's Arms on the way home.
The old car's cap is where your hand reaches — but a rental car, a new motor or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is the second thing: a new vehicle.
A spout-topped bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once started, carries on. It's a few seconds, be it out in Wiveton or bang in the centre of Blakeney.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you pour anything, on a drive in Glandford or a forecourt in Blakeney.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on many motors. Check for it.
- Can't see it next to your diesel inlet? In that case check below the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook will say where.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Sheringham.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Norfolk that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Langham Road.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It sounds silly. It does the trick.
- The two under a single flap? Then make sure the lid on the diesel filler is still shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Do not go on to step five.
Blakeney: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Brief list, then. Top of it: the engine remains off. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — and so leave it off. Filling up with diesel won't dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of that tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help roll the vehicle clear of the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Pace, the BP or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive around Blakeney.
When the motor has been run by now, stop safely and turn the car off. The next exit means where to leave if you're on the A1(M), over 50 miles from Blakeney. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Blakeney is smaller work than a trip of under 50 miles to Norwich, and so say.
When our engineers turn up in Blakeney, what takes place?
Anywhere the vehicle came to rest, whether outside Blakeney Church of England Voluntary Aided Primary School, beside Blakeney Village Sign or on your own drive, our van comes to it. Which liquid was put in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our technicians ask because those replies decide both work and quote. You get that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out.
Draining that tank comes next, then a full flush of your system. With AdBlue that matters 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. Filter flushed or, where it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; then a check of the vehicle. The engine is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs smoothly, all before we head off.
Unrun cars mostly need a half-hour job from arrival. The kit is fine on a busy forecourt, and quiet enough for a driveway late at night. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Blakeney itself
Blakeney is a small coastal village in north Norfolk, situated on the marshy coast near the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Blakeney sits at a low elevation of around 8 metres, close to the villages of Wiveton and Morston. Blakeney has a population of approximately 556 people, living in predominantly detached housing. Blakeney is located near Cley next the Sea, and is about 25 miles from Norwich, the nearest city.
AdBlue drains across Norfolk, Blakeney included
Blakeney is a coastal village, and the teams that cover it also work the places near it, Morston and Cley next the Sea among them, across the NR postcode area. Quickest of all: quote a NR25 7 postcode for our van.
No need to move your car. Wherever it stands — near Guildhall, on a layby heading to The Pastures, at home — that is where it is emptied. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Blakeney Methodist Church, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Blakeney motorists: the short version
Always, the cap; after that, the tip. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Keep the car off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, throughout Norfolk.