How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bentfield Green
Pause here a minute if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then call 0333 366 0103. Normally, if your motor has not turned, it is drained and thoroughly flushed where your vehicle is around Bentfield Green. Here in advance? In that case what follows explains why it happens and how to prevent it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
No single liquid but two: that is how many modern diesels around Bentfield Green and Manuden run, with diesel for your motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more place the two together behind one flap. Filling your diesel side at the pump happens all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less commonly. That gap is where the error lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Bentfield Green: how it happens
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a driveway off Bentfield End Causeway before work, or in the car park outside Rose & Crown 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 once it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
New-to-you motors are next, as well. Hire cars, new cars and company cars place their fillers differently, and the hand reaches for the cap used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in just as easily, and once the pour starts, no part stops it. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Bentfield Green or out in Stansted Mountfitchet.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt around Bentfield Green or a drive out in Ugley Green. A few seconds, that's all.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones are often blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually do not.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- 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 previous driver knows. Check when you collect a hire car or fleet car — at Stansted Mountfitchet's car park, say — not once the warning comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
For the day the light appears — anywhere it is around Essex — a routine to use.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — not rushing on the side of Bentfield Bower.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — once you have found the filler and read the cap.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and check again that your diesel cap never came off.
Find at the second or third step that the bottle went into the wrong tank? That's where you stop. Never go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Bentfield Green?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your engine. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch it on. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
The attendants at Esso, JET or another forecourt will normally lend a hand pushing the vehicle clear if you ask. On your own drive in Bentfield Green? So the vehicle remains put.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. On the M11, under 3 miles from Bentfield Green, that means the next exit. Mileage counts — a short hop across Bentfield Green makes a smaller job than driving under 25 miles towards Chelmsford — so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival in Bentfield Green, and what takes place next
By Bentfield Primary School and Nursery, near Jubilee Arch (1935) or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, we come to it. Those replies settle this work and our quote, and so we ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it has run. The price is given on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more here than with petrol. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
With pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine hasn't run take about half an hour after our technicians arrive. Your insurer will ask for the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. While we travel, take a look at your policy; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Bentfield Green
Bentfield Green is a locality in Essex, situated inland at an elevation of 99 metres, approximately 17 miles from Chelmsford and 30.8 miles from London. Bentfield Green is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting the area's residential nature. Bentfield Green is close to nearby places such as Stansted Mountfitchet, Bentfield Bury, and Hazel End, and has a population of around 1127 residents.
AdBlue drains round Bentfield Green, and Essex beyond
As a small village, Bentfield Green has the same vans as surrounding places — Bentfield Bury, Hazel End — right through CM postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Give a postcode beginning CM24 8, and our van arrives fastest.
Your car remains where it is. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near Stansted Library, a lay-by on the way to the green space at the edge of the village, a driveway. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of TouchPoint Stansted.
Bentfield Green drivers: the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it wherever it stands, wherever in Essex: switch the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103.