Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Walton
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and your ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Walton. Reading in advance? Then the rest covers why it comes about and what to stop it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of modern diesels around The Port of Felixstowe, like those in Walton, carry on two liquids; your motor takes only your diesel. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, and there spraying treats the gas.
Each tank comes with a filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on many vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Diesel goes in on every filling station visit, week in, week out. Much less often, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens around Walton
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
On a driveway off High Street before work, or in the car park outside Falcon heading home: that's where the hurried top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle warns you, and if it is empty, limp mode follows.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once started, carries on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Walton or out in Felixstowe.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A few seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Lower Falkenham or a forecourt in Walton.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of cars say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler is if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Felixstowe.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
Wherever around Suffolk the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Alexandra Road.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — after you have located your filler and read the cap.
- Both under a single flap? Then make sure the cap on your diesel filler is still shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Step five is off limits.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Walton already?
Don't start the motor: that is where the short order of things begins. Leave the ignition off too, because on many diesels it alone starts the fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the staff to help roll your car away from the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Esso, the Morrisons or somewhere else. Your own drive around Walton is where it stays.
When your engine has been run already, stop safely and switch the car off. Leave the M11 — under 50 miles out of Walton — at the first junction. Mileage counts — a quick hop across Walton makes a smaller job than driving under 25 miles to Colchester — so say about how far it went.
Walton: what happens when our engineers turn up
We come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Felix Primary School, close to Walton Village Sign or on your own drive. We ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, because those replies settle the work and the quote. That price is given on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Emptying your tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that matters more here than with petrol. Filter cleaned or, if it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a test of your vehicle. We don't go until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
Unrun cars mostly mean a half-hour job from arrival. The equipment is safe on a live filling station, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. No money upfront; you settle up that day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. While we travel, have a look at your insurance documents; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Walton
Walton is a suburban area in Suffolk, situated on the coast near the ports of Felixstowe and Harwich. Walton sits at a low elevation of around 25 metres, with views out to the North Sea. Walton is part of the larger Ipswich urban area, but remains a distinct community with its own character, close to the nearby villages of Trimley St Mary and Old Felixstowe.
AdBlue drains around Walton, and Suffolk beyond
Being a residential suburb, Walton has the same vans as nearby areas — Trimley St Mary, Old Felixstowe — all the way across IP postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting IP11 9.
The car does not need to shift. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Abbey Grove, a side street close to St. Mary’s: we drain it where it sits. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Maidstone Road Baptist Church.
The short version for Walton people
Pour nothing till you've read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it wherever it is, wherever across Suffolk: switch the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103.