Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Ashingdon
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and the ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. In Ashingdon, catching it before the engine turns usually leaves draining and a full flush on the spot. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of newer diesels in South Fambridge, as well as Ashingdon, carry on two liquids; the motor gets just your diesel. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank comes with a filler of its own. Many of motors have a single flap for both, whereas others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at each filling station call-out, again and again. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. That gap is where the error lives.
Ashingdon: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from your car, and letting it run dry means limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Highcliff Crescent, or at The Victory Inn on the way home that evening.
Then, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old motor — since a hire car, a new motor or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the pour after it has started. It takes a few seconds, whether in Hawkwell or right in the heart of Ashingdon.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all these take — so check them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Stroud Green or a forecourt in Ashingdon.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on many motors. Look for it.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Hockley, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
On the day the warning appears — wherever you are around Essex — a routine to use.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Alexandra Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two sit under a flap, confirm it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Never carry on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Ashingdon?
Don't start the engine: that's how the short order of things begins. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the car on. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
Ask the attendants to help push your car away from the pump if you're on a forecourt — the Esso, the JET or somewhere else. Your own drive in Ashingdon is the place it should stay.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Come off the M25 — under 25 miles out of Ashingdon — at the first junction. Distance counts — a short hop across Ashingdon is a smaller job than heading under 5 miles to Southend-on-Sea — so say roughly how far it went.
What occurs when we turn up around Ashingdon
We come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Lift Ashingdon, near Ashingdon & East Hawkwell Memorial Hall or on your own drive. Our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and whether it's run, since the answers settle this work and our quote. That price is given over the phone, before any van leaves.
Then your tank is drained and the fuel system cleaned thoroughly. 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 cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. After that our technicians fire it up and make sure it runs correctly before we go.
With pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your engine has not run take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Before we get there, have a look at your policy; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Ashingdon itself
Ashingdon is a village in Essex, situated inland at an elevation of 31 metres, approximately 35.9 miles from London. Ashingdon lies near the towns of Southend-on-Sea and Hockley, and is close to the villages of Hawkwell and Mount Bovers. Ashingdon has a population of around 2093 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
AdBlue drains round Ashingdon, and Essex beyond
Mount Bovers and Hockley are among the places near Ashingdon, a rural village, that the same vans cover, throughout SS postcodes. A postcode starting SS4 3 gets the van to you fastest.
Shifting the vehicle isn't needed. The drain takes place on the spot, whether a drive, a road near St Andrews, Ashingdon, or a lay-by on the way to King Georges Field. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Hawkwell Baptist Church, ring and ask rather than guessing.
The short version for Ashingdon drivers
Always, the cap; after that, the tip. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around Essex, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless — and so leave it off and ring 0333 366 0103.