AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Foulsham: Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It
Pause here a minute if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. In Foulsham, catching it before your engine turns usually leaves a drain and a thorough flush on the spot. Reading before the event? Then what follows covers why it happens and what to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Many newer diesels on the roads round Foulsham and Bintree carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. On a lot of cars 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 filling station call-out, again and again. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. The error lives in that gap.
Foulsham: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
It's hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Market Hill, perhaps at The Queen's Head on the way home that evening.
Next, your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — since a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
A spout-topped bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after begun, keeps on. Pockthorpe or the middle of Foulsham: it takes the same few seconds either way.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt in Foulsham or a driveway over in Themelthorpe. Seconds, that's all.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — many motors show which goes in each filler right there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler is if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The previous driver knows. Check as you collect a hire car or fleet car — at the nearest station's car park, perhaps — rather than once the warning appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Norfolk that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Reepham Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It seems daft. It does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Spot at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? So stop just there. Leave out step five entirely.
Foulsham: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Brief list, then. First: your motor remains off. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
The attendants at the nearest petrol station, another forecourt nearby or another forecourt will normally lend a hand to push your car away when you ask. At home in Foulsham? Then the vehicle stays where it is.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. On the M11, over 50 miles from Foulsham, that means the next junction. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Foulsham makes a smaller job than heading under 25 miles towards Norwich — so say about how far it went.
Our arrival in Foulsham, and what happens next
Our van reaches the car anywhere it has come to rest — your own drive, beside Foulsham War Memorial, or outside Foulsham Primary School Academy. Our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and whether it has run, since the replies determine the work and the quote. No one sets off before you've heard the price by phone.
After that: draining, then a full flush of the whole system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
If the motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. The insurer usually wants the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. It's worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Foulsham
Foulsham is a small village in Norfolk, situated inland at an elevation of 42 metres, approximately 15.9 miles from Norwich. Foulsham has a population of around 728 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Foulsham is surrounded by nearby places such as Pockthorpe, Bexfield, and Twyford, and is about 100.6 miles from London.
AdBlue drains around Foulsham and across Norfolk
Foulsham is a rural village, and the vans that cover it also work the places around it, Bexfield and Twyford among them, across the NR postcode area. Give a postcode that starts NR20 5, and the van gets there fastest.
Your car does not need to move. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Foulsham Park, a side street near Foulsham Village Sign: our technicians drain the vehicle where it is. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Holy Innocents Church.
The short version for Foulsham people
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Keep the vehicle switched off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, across Norfolk.