AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Cliftonville: Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Around Cliftonville, finding it before the engine turns normally leaves a drain and a full flush on the spot. Reading before the event? In that case the rest covers how it comes about and how to stop it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Diesel goes to your engine — but plenty of modern diesels seen round Cliftonville and Paston hold another liquid as well. The exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the gas to clean it, from a separate tank.
Different tanks, separate fillers. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in at each forecourt call-out, week in, week out. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, poured by a driver who must stop and think which cap it needs. The mistake lives in that gap.
Cliftonville: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
Haste follows from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a driveway off Orchard Close, or heading home in the car park outside The Ship Inn.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — yet a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That is a second thing: a new vehicle.
A spouted bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after started, keeps on. It takes seconds, whether out in Mundesley or bang in the heart of Cliftonville.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Trunch or a forecourt in Cliftonville, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally do not.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of vehicles mark what goes in each inlet just there.
- The handbook says which it is when the filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- 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 at Gunton.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Norfolk that is.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of Norwich Street.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you have located your filler and read it.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both sit under a flap, confirm it's shut before the bottle comes up.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Shut the cap, and check again — making sure the diesel cap remained closed throughout. After that, start your car.
Discover during the second or third step that the bottle went in the diesel tank? That's where you stop. Step five is out.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Cliftonville?
Don't start the engine: that is where the short order of things begins. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch it on. Topping up with diesel will not dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of that tank, just where fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — Sainsbury's, another forecourt nearby or any other — the attendants will normally help push your car clear, when you ask. Your own driveway in Cliftonville is where it stays.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Come off the M11 — over 50 miles out of Cliftonville — at the first junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Norwich, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Cliftonville.
Our arrival in Cliftonville, and what occurs next
Wherever your car came to rest, be it by Mundesley Junior School, beside Emergency Coast Battery or at home, our van travels to it. The replies decide this work and our price, and so our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it has run. No one sets off until you have had the quote by phone.
Then that tank is cleared and the system purged thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that counts more here than with petrol. A test is at the end: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is cleaned or replaced if necessary. We don't leave until it has been started and is running smoothly.
If the motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. It is worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Cliftonville
Cliftonville is a small coastal suburban area in Norfolk, situated near the towns of Mundesley, Gimingham, and Trimingham. Cliftonville sits at an elevation of 38 metres, overlooking the North Sea coastline. Cliftonville is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its development as a residential area. Cliftonville is located approximately 18 miles from Norwich, the nearest city, and around 115 miles from London.
AdBlue drains in Cliftonville and across Norfolk
Cliftonville is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Gimingham and Trimingham among them, across the NR postcode area. Quote a postcode beginning NR11 8, and our van arrives quickest.
The car stays where it is. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Mundesley Golf Course, a side street close to All Saints: our engineers drain the car where it is. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Coronation Hall.
The short version for Cliftonville people
Tip no AdBlue until you have read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave it switched off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across Norfolk.