AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Tharston: Why It Happens and How to Prevent It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. In Tharston, finding it before the engine runs usually leaves a drain and a thorough flush on the spot. Reading before the event? In that case what follows covers how it happens and what to prevent it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Many modern diesels on the roads around Tharston and Tasburgh carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Its own tank holds it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, and there spraying treats the fumes.
Different tanks, different fillers. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have both side by side under one flap. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less often, normally from a bottle, and usually by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank happen in Tharston?
Rarely 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 car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Church Road before work, or in the car park at the pub in the village on the way home.
Unfamiliar cars come next, as well. Rentals, new cars and company cars place their fillers in new places, and the hand goes for the cap used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the pour after it has started. It takes seconds, whether out in Stratton St Michael or right in the heart of Tharston.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Lower Tasburgh or a forecourt around Tharston, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Read the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Look for it.
- The handbook says where it lives when your filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver will know. Check as you collect a rental or company car — at Wymondham's car park, perhaps — rather than when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Norfolk that is.
- Stop somewhere level, motor off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of Hall Lane.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — once you've found the filler and read it.
- The two behind one flap? So confirm the lid on the diesel side stays closed ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, close the cap and check again that your diesel cap was never came off.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Skip step five altogether.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Tharston already?
The short order of things, starting with not starting your motor. Leave your ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels switching it on alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the bottom of that tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help push the car clear of the pump if you are at a forecourt — the Shell, the another forecourt nearby or somewhere else. At home in Tharston? Then the car remains put.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next exit means where to come off when you are on the M11, over 50 miles from Tharston. Distance matters — a short hop across Tharston is a smaller job than driving under 10 miles to Norwich — so say roughly how far it went.
What occurs when we turn up in Tharston
The van comes to the car wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside Tharston Village Sign, or by St Mary's Church of England Junior Academy. The replies decide the work and the quote, so we ask what was put in, about how much, and if it's run. During the phone call itself, you hear the price — before dispatch.
Draining that tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of your system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. We don't go until it has been started and is running correctly.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the engine has not run take roughly half an hour after our engineers arrive. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Tharston, for a moment
Tharston is a small village in Norfolk, situated approximately 9 miles south of Norwich, and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Tharston sits in a low-lying area of the Norfolk countryside, with an elevation of around 45 metres, and is surrounded by nearby villages such as Stratton St Michael and Long Stratton. Tharston has a population of around 571 residents, and is located about 90 miles northeast of London.
AdBlue drains round Tharston, and Norfolk beyond
Tharston is a rural village, and the vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Low Tharston and Long Stratton among them, across the NR postcode area. Fastest of all: give a NR15 2 postcode for the van.
Shifting your car is not necessary. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Long Stratton Park, a side street close to Saint Mary's: we drain it where it stands. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Long Stratton Leisure Centre, ring and ask rather than guessing.
The short version for Tharston drivers
Pour no AdBlue until you've read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it is, anywhere around Norfolk: switch the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.