Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Great Blakenham
Leave your motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before your engine runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Great Blakenham. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Many modern diesels around Baylham, like those in Great Blakenham, carry on two fluids; your engine takes only your diesel. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, and there a spray treats the fumes.
Each tank comes with a filler of its own. Other vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty more place the two together under one flap. Diesel goes in on each forecourt visit, week in, week out. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think what filler it needs. The mistake grows in the gap between them.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank happen in Great Blakenham?
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things coming up at once.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Chalk Hill Lane before work, or in the car park at Chequers on the way home.
Next, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — since a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
Lastly, the bottle fits: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in as readily, and after the pour begins, nothing stops it. Sharpstone Street or the middle of Great Blakenham: it is the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Whether a Great Blakenham forecourt or a driveway over in Little Blakenham, spend a few seconds on these before anything goes in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally is not. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Needham Market? Check with the person who drove the car last before you set off, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Suffolk that is.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of Kingfisher Drive.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — once you have located your filler and read it.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting your car, shut the cap and check a second time that your diesel cap never opened off.
Find at step two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop right there. Skip stage five entirely.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Great Blakenham already?
Brief list, then. Top of that: your engine remains unstarted. Leave your ignition off too, because on plenty of diesels switching it on alone starts your fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
On a forecourt — Asda, Shell or any other — the attendants will usually help roll the car away, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Great Blakenham.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Come off the M11 — under 50 miles out of Great Blakenham — at the first junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Colchester, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Great Blakenham.
Great Blakenham: what happens when we arrive
Our van reaches the car wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, near Great Blakenham Parish Room, or outside Claydon Primary School. Our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it has run, because those replies settle the work and the quote. On the phone call itself, you are told the quote — before anything else.
Your system is then flushed thoroughly, after that tank is cleared. Much more than with petrol, it counts here: the crystals build up, some metals corrode, and nothing clears out unaided, no matter how long it is left. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Before we go, we start the engine and confirm that it is running properly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after we arrive, provided your engine hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork your insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Great Blakenham
Great Blakenham is a village situated on the riverside in Suffolk, with an elevation of around 17 metres. Great Blakenham lies near the towns of Colchester and Ipswich, and is part of a network of rural communities including Sharpstone Street, Claydon, and Upper Street. Great Blakenham has a population of approximately 961 people, and its housing stock is predominantly made up of detached homes.
AdBlue drains around Great Blakenham, and Suffolk beyond
Claydon and Upper Street are among the towns around Great Blakenham, a village, that the same vans cover, throughout IP postcodes. Give a postcode that starts IP6 0, and our van gets there fastest.
Your car remains put. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Devil's Grove, a side street near Great Blakenham War Memorial: our technicians drain it where it stands. Assuming doesn't help behind St Mary, close to a boundary, or anywhere awkward to pin down; phone and check.
In short, for Great Blakenham motorists
Read the cap before you tip. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it waits, anywhere across Suffolk.