AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Brook Street: How It Occurs and How to Stop It
Stop here for a moment if the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Normally, when the motor hasn't turned, it's emptied and thoroughly cleaned where your vehicle is in Brook Street. If you are 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 vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel feeds the engine — but plenty of current diesels seen around Brook Street and Great Warley hold a second liquid too. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the gas to clean it, from its own tank.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on many vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. Topping up your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less frequently, usually from a bottle, and usually by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in the gap that the error lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Brook Street: how it takes place
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the car, and letting it run out means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Westbourne Drive, or at The Bull on the way home after work.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing stops the tip once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Brook Street or out in South Weald.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Be it a Brook Street forecourt or a drive over in Brentwood, spend a few seconds over these before anything goes in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on many cars. Look for it.
- The handbook shows which it is when the filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Brentwood.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
On the day the warning appears — wherever you are in Essex — a routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of Mascalls Lane, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park then switch off first.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — once you have located the filler and read it.
- The diesel cap stays on. When the two share a flap, make sure it's shut before the bottle comes up.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, close the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap was never came off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Step five is out.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Brook Street?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. Keep the ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels it by itself runs your pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
On a forecourt — Shell, Esso or another — the attendants will normally help push the vehicle away, when you ask. On your own drive in Brook Street? So the vehicle remains put.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. On the M25, under a mile from Brook Street, that means the next exit. A short hop across Brook Street is a smaller job than a run towards Chelmsford, under 15 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival around Brook Street, and what takes place next
Outside Holly Trees Primary School, near South Weald Parish Hall or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, we come to it. What liquid was put in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our technicians ask since the answers set the work and quote. That quote is given on the call, before any van leaves.
Then that tank is cleared and your system cleaned thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Then our engineers start the car and confirm it runs properly before we leave.
If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Brook Street itself
Brook Street is a suburban area in Essex, situated approximately 12 miles from Chelmsford and 19 miles from London. Brook Street sits in a relatively low-lying area at an elevation of around 53 metres, surrounded by other nearby places such as South Weald and Warley. Brook Street has a population of around 2257 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Brook Street is characterized by its residential nature, with a mix of local amenities and services.
Brook Street and Essex: AdBlue drains across the area
Warley and Harold Park are among the towns around Brook Street, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, over CM postcodes. A postcode starting CM14 5 gets the van to you fastest.
Your car doesn't need to move. Draining happens on the spot, be it a drive, a road by St Peter, South Weald, or a layby towards River Road Play Space. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Belvedere Tower (ruins).
The short version for Brook Street motorists
Before you pour, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere in Essex, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — and so leave the car off then ring 0333 366 0103.