How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Kirby Row
Keep the motor and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. In Kirby Row, catching it before the motor turns usually leaves a drain and a full flush where it stands. The rest of this page explains why it occurs and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads about Kirby Row and Kirby Green carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, and there a spray treats the gas.
Every tank has one filler of its own. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on many motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up constantly. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
Kirby Row: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
Carelessness rarely causes it. What does is three things lining up together.
Hurry follows from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off Mill Close, or heading home in the car park at the pub in the village.
New-to-you vehicles are second, as well. Rentals, new vehicles and company cars put their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
No part stops the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Kirby Row or out in Ellingham.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Broome Street or a forecourt around Kirby Row, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- Many cars fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Open the filler flap and look for a label — plenty of cars mark which goes in which inlet just there.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask as you pick up a rental or company car — at Beccles's car park, perhaps — rather than when the light appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Norfolk that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Mill Lane, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, perhaps, but it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave it on.
- Stop once the tank fills or the bottle is empty; before that, tip gently using its own spout.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Don't go on to step five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Kirby Row?
The short order of things, beginning with not starting the motor. Keep the ignition off too, because on many diesels switching it on by itself starts the fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it is the Shell or the The Co-operative, ask the attendants to help roll the car clear of the petrol pump. On your own drive in Kirby Row? Then your car remains where it is.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Kirby Row lies over 50 miles from the M11; on it, use the next exit. A short hop across Kirby Row is a smaller job than a run towards Norwich, under 15 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our engineers turn up in Kirby Row, what takes place?
Our technicians come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Ellingham VC Primary School, near Kirby Cane Village Sign or on your own driveway. What fluid went in, the amount, and if it ran: our engineers ask because those replies decide both work and price. The price is given on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the entire system. With AdBlue that matters 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. After your filter has been cleaned — or renewed, where needed — clean diesel is added, and finally your vehicle gets tested. Then our engineers start the engine and check it runs smoothly before we go.
If the engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Your insurer usually wants an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Kirby Row, for a moment
Kirby Row is a small hamlet in Norfolk, situated inland at a low elevation of around 6 metres. Kirby Row lies near the villages of Ellingham and Kirby Cane, and is close to the West End area. Kirby Row is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, and is located approximately 13 miles from Norwich. Kirby Row is a relatively small community, with a population of around 855 people.
AdBlue drains around Kirby Row and across Norfolk
Kirby Cane and West End are among the places around Kirby Row, a rural hamlet, that the same teams cover, over NR postcodes. A postcode starting NR35 2 gets the van to you fastest.
The car remains put. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Ellingham Village Sign, a lay-by on the way to Henry's Plantation, a driveway. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Saint Mary's Church.
In short, for Kirby Row drivers
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Norfolk, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — so leave the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.