AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Brewers Green: Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and the ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Brewers Green. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Diesel feeds your motor — but plenty of modern diesels driven about Brewers Green and Diss hold another fluid too. The exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the fumes to clean it, from its own tank.
There is a filler on each tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the layout on a lot of vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Diesel goes in on every forecourt visit, week in, week out. The AdBlue side is filled far less commonly, usually from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
Brewers Green: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the vehicle, and letting it run out means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Manor Drive, perhaps outside The White Hart on the way home after work.
Unfamiliar vehicles are second, too. Rentals, new vehicles and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
No part stops the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Roydon or the middle of Brewers Green: it is the same few seconds in both.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Westbrook Green or a forecourt in Brewers Green, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue ones are often blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- Plenty of motors give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler is if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check when you pick up a hire car or company car — from Diss's car park, say — not once the warning appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
The day the light comes on, wherever across Norfolk, use this routine.
- Switch off once parked — level ground, motor stopped, and not in a rush beside Factory Lane at the roadside.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two sit under a flap, confirm it's shut before the bottle comes up.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Leave out step five entirely.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Brewers Green already?
Short list, then. First: your motor remains off. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the vehicle on. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it is the Gulf Oil or the Morrisons, ask the staff to help push your car away from the pump. Your own drive around Brewers Green is where it stays.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. The next junction means where to leave if you're on the M11, under 50 miles from Brewers Green. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Brewers Green is less work than a run of under 25 miles to Norwich, so tell us.
Our arrival around Brewers Green, and what takes place next
We come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Roydon Primary School, close to Roydon Village Hall or on your own drive. We ask what was put in, about how much, and if it has run, since the replies decide the work and the quote. The quote comes over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Then your tank is drained and your system cleaned thoroughly. More than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: crystals build up, some metals are attacked, and nothing washes away unaided, however long it sits. Filter cleaned or, if needed, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a check of the car. We don't leave until it has been started and is running correctly.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once we get there, provided the motor has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Brewers Green, briefly
Brewers Green is a small locality in Norfolk, situated inland at an elevation of 44 metres, and is located near the villages of Roydon and Baynards Green. Brewers Green is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its relatively rural setting. Brewers Green sits approximately 19 miles from Norwich, the nearest city, and about 80 miles from London.
AdBlue drains around Brewers Green and across Norfolk
Brewers Green is a small village, and our vans that cover it also work the places around it, Baynards Green and Snow Street among them, across the IP postcode area. A postcode starting IP22 5 gets our van to you fastest.
Moving your car isn't needed. Anywhere it stands — near Roydon Village Sign, in a lay-by heading to Brewers Green - Open Access Land, at home — that's where it gets drained. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Jubilee Walk.
Brewers Green motorists: the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it is, wherever across Norfolk: switch the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.