Burnham-on-Crouch: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Keep your engine and ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Around Burnham-on-Crouch, finding it before your engine runs usually leaves draining and a full flush where it stands. Nothing happened yet? Below, the rest of the page explains the reasons it occurs and the how to prevent it for good.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Many current diesels on the roads round Burnham-on-Crouch and Paglesham Eastend carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the fumes to clean it, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled on every filling station visit, week in, week out. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. It is in that gap that the mistake happens.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens around Burnham-on-Crouch
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
On a drive off Chapel Road before work, or in the car park outside Star Inn heading home: that's where the rushed top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car warns you, and once it is empty, limp mode kicks in.
Next, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old car — because a rental car, a new car or a company car places the fillers somewhere 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, so nothing stops the tip once it has started. Stoneyhills or the heart of Burnham-on-Crouch: it is the same few seconds either way.
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 drive in Paglesham Churchend or a forecourt around Burnham-on-Crouch.
- Read the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally are not.
- On many vehicles, size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Check inside your fuel flap: many cars have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler is if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The previous driver will know. Check as you pick up a hire car or company car — at the nearest station's car park, perhaps — not when the warning comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Essex that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of The Quay, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park and switch off properly.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you have located the filler and read it.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Leave out stage five entirely.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Burnham-on-Crouch?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your motor. The fuel pump runs on many diesels as soon as your ignition goes on — and so leave it off. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it's the Woodfords Garage or the another forecourt nearby, ask the attendants to help roll your car away from the pump. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Burnham-on-Crouch.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your motor has already run. The next junction means where to come off if you're on the M2, under 25 miles from Burnham-on-Crouch. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Burnham-on-Crouch is less work than a run of under 10 miles to Southend-on-Sea, so say.
Burnham-on-Crouch: what occurs when we arrive
By Burnham-on-Crouch Primary School, near War Memorial or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Which fluid got in, the amount, and whether it ran: our technicians ask since the answers decide both work and price. During the phone call itself, you are told the quote — before dispatch.
Then that tank is drained and the system rinsed thoroughly. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and neither washes out by itself. That is why it matters more. After your filter is flushed — or renewed, if required — clean diesel is added, and finally the vehicle is tested. Then our engineers fire it up and confirm it runs smoothly before we leave.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once our engineers get there, as long as your motor hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. Your insurer will ask for the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. It is worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Burnham-on-Crouch, for a moment
Burnham-on-Crouch is a small town situated on the River Crouch in Essex, with a low elevation of around 4 metres above sea level. Burnham-on-Crouch has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are particularly prevalent, and the town is located near other communities such as Stoneyhills and Creeksea. Burnham-on-Crouch is close to the larger urban centre of Southend-on-Sea, which is about 7 miles away, and is also within commuting distance of London, at around 41 miles to the northwest. Burnham-on-Crouch has a population of approximately 6590 residents.
AdBlue drains across Essex, Burnham-on-Crouch included
Creeksea and Ostend are among the towns around Burnham-on-Crouch, a riverside town, that the same vans cover, throughout CM postcodes. Fastest of all: quote a CM0 8 postcode to the van.
The car remains where it is. Wherever it stands — beside Burnham Baptist Church, in a lay-by en route to Riverside Park, on a drive — that's where it is emptied. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of The Rio, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Burnham-on-Crouch motorists: the short version
Tip nothing until you have read the cap. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it wherever it is, anywhere in Essex: switch it off then call 0333 366 0103.