Culford: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Culford. The remainder of this page explains why it happens and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Diesel goes to the motor — but many current diesels seen about Culford and West Stow hold a second liquid too. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank has a filler of its own. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. Seldom filled, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think which cap to use. The slip lives in that gap.
Culford: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off B1106 before work, or in the car park outside the pub in the village on the way home.
Then the car is strange. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Third, the spout fits: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in as readily, and once the tip starts, nothing stops it. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Culford or out in Brockley Corner.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Ingham or a forecourt around Culford, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Read the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- Plenty of vehicles give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Open the flap and check for a label — plenty of cars show which goes in each inlet just there.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park at Bury St Edmunds? Ask the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, not when the light goes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
For the day the light appears — wherever you are in Suffolk — a simple routine to follow.
- Not in a rush on the side of The Street, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park then switch off properly.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, yes, but it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and check a second time that your diesel cap never opened off.
Spot at stage two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop just there. Don't go on to step five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Culford?
Don't start your motor: that's where the short order of things begins. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels as soon as the ignition goes on — and so leave it off. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it is the Esso or the Tesco, ask the attendants to help roll your car clear of the pump. Your own drive in Culford is the place it should stay.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your motor has already run. Culford sits under 50 miles from the M11; on it, use the first exit. Distance matters — a quick hop across Culford is a smaller job than heading under 25 miles to Ely — so tell us roughly how far it went.
Culford: what occurs when our engineers get there
By Howard Community Academy, close to St Mary or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Both the work and our price depend on three answers — what fluid, what quantity, and if it's run — so our engineers ask. No one heads out until you have heard our price by phone.
Next: a drain, then a thorough flush of the entire system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither clears away by itself. Hence it matters more. Filter cleaned or, if needed, replaced; clean diesel in; then a test of your car. Before we go, our technicians start the car and check that it is running correctly.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where your motor has not run take roughly half an hour after we are there. No money in advance; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. While we travel, take a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Culford and where it is
Culford is a small village in Suffolk, situated inland at an elevation of around 25 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Culford lies approximately 19.5 miles from the city of Ely and 64.8 miles from London, placing it in a rural setting with nearby places including Brockley Corner, Hengrave, and Timworth Green. Culford has a population of around 559 people, making it a tight-knit community. Culford is surrounded by the rolling countryside of the Eastern region, providing a peaceful environment for its residents.
AdBlue drains about Culford, and Suffolk beyond
Over IP postcodes, our teams that cover Culford — a rural village — work the nearby spots too, Timworth Green and Hengrave among them. Fastest of all: give a IP28 6 postcode for our van.
Your car doesn't need to shift. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Hengrave Belt, a side street close to Culford Village Hall: we drain it where it stands. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Culford Estate War Memorial.
The short version for Culford motorists
Before you tip, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the car off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it waits, anywhere in Suffolk.