Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bacon End: Why It Happens
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then set this page aside a moment, keep the ignition and engine off, then ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out right where your vehicle sits around Bacon End, is usually what it needs when found before the engine runs. The rest of this page covers why it happens and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Many modern diesels on the roads about Bacon End and Great Canfield carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to clean it, from a separate tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of cars share a single flap for both, while others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in at each filling station visit, week in, week out. Much less commonly, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Bacon End: how it takes place
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Bacons Farm Lane before work, or in the car park outside the pub in the village on the way home.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — but a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That is the second factor: a strange vehicle.
A spout-topped bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once begun, keeps on. It's seconds, whether out in Baconend Green or right in the centre of Bacon End.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Pharisee Green or a forecourt around Bacon End, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- On many vehicles, the size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Open the flap and look for a label — many cars show what belongs in each inlet right there.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver knows. Ask as you pick up a hire car or fleet car — from Stansted Airport's car park, perhaps — not when the light appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
Wherever around Essex the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Switch off once parked — level ground, motor stopped, and never in a rush beside Water Lane on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- The two under a single flap? Then confirm the cap on your diesel side stays shut before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Step five is off limits.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Bacon End?
Brief order, then. First: the motor stays unstarted. Leave your ignition off too, since on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself starts your fuel pump. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, because AdBlue settles to the base rather than mixing — and that's where your fuel is pulled from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the Tesco or the Gulf, ask the attendants to help roll the car clear of the pump. On your own drive in Bacon End? Then your car stays where it is.
Already started? Stop once it's safe, then turn off. On the M11, under 10 miles from Bacon End, that means the next junction. A short hop across Bacon End is a smaller job than a run towards Chelmsford, under 10 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our technicians arrive in Bacon End, what occurs?
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Great Dunmow Primary School, close to St Mary, Great Canfield or on your own drive. Those replies determine the work and the price, so we ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it has run. Nobody heads out before you have heard our price over the phone.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the entire system. Much more than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: crystals form, some metals are attacked, and none of it clears out unaided, no matter how long it sits. A test comes at the end: before that, clean diesel is added, and your filter is flushed or changed as needed. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
If the motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both once this job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Bacon End, briefly
Bacon End is a small hamlet in Essex, situated inland at an elevation of around 74 metres, and is located approximately 9.6 miles from Chelmsford. Bacon End is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock and is surrounded by nearby places such as Baconend Green and Philpot End. Bacon End remains a quiet rural community, with High Roding also nearby, and is about 30.4 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Essex, Bacon End included
Philpot End and High Roding are among the places around Bacon End, a rural hamlet, that the same teams cover, throughout CM postcodes. Fastest of all: give a CM6 1 postcode for the van.
The car doesn't need to shift. We drain it where it is — a side street near All Saints, High Roding, a lay-by on the way to Canfield Thrift, a drive. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of The Peace Oak, ring and ask instead of guessing.
Bacon End people: the short version
Pour no AdBlue until you've read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Leave the car switched off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Essex.