Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Cole End
Leave your engine and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Normally, when your motor hasn't turned, it's emptied and fully cleaned where your car sits in Cole End. Not happened yet? Below, the page covers the reasons it occurs and the ways to prevent it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Many current diesels on the roads around Cole End and Rowney Corner carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
There's a filler on every tank. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on many motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Topping up your diesel side at the pump happens all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. It is in that gap that the slip happens.
Cole End: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Cole End Farm Lane before work, or in the car park at the pub in the village on the way home.
Then, your hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old vehicle — because a hire car, a new motor or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
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. Sewards End or the middle of Cole End: it takes the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these first, on a forecourt in Cole End or a driveway out in Purton End. Seconds, no more.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the filler flap and look for a label — plenty of motors show which goes in each filler just there.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by the diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Audley End.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Essex that is.
- Switch off after you park — level ground, motor stopped, and not in a rush beside Thaxted Road on the verge.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, but it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave it on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then check again — making sure your diesel filler remained closed throughout. Only then, start the vehicle.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Cole End already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the motor. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel won't weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the bottom of your tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it is the Tesco or the Gulf, ask the staff to help roll the vehicle away from the petrol pump. At home around Cole End? Then your car remains where it is.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. On the M11, under 5 miles from Cole End, that means the next junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Cambridge, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Cole End.
When our engineers turn up around Cole End, what occurs?
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Katherine Semar Infant School, close to St James, Sewards End or on your own drive. Both the work and the quote depend on three replies — what fluid, which amount, and whether it has run — so our technicians ask. You get that quote on the phone, before anyone sets off.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. More than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: crystals form, certain metals corrode, and none of it clears out on its own, no matter how long it sits. After your filter has been flushed — or replaced, if needed — clean diesel is added, and then the car is tested. Then our technicians start the car and make sure it runs smoothly before we go.
Unrun cars usually mean a half-hour visit from arrival. The kit is fine on a live forecourt, and quiet enough for a residential street late at night. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Cole End
Cole End is a small hamlet situated on the riverside in Essex, with a relatively low elevation of 112 metres. Cole End lies near several other small settlements, including Sewards End, Frogs Green, and Elder Street. Cole End is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Cole End is located approximately 38.7 miles from London and 15.4 miles from Cambridge, making it a relatively remote community.
Cole End and Essex: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout CB postcodes, our teams that cover Cole End — a rural hamlet — work the nearby spots too, Elder Street and Frogs Green included. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting CB10 2.
The car does not need to move. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Sewards End Village Hall, a lay-by on the way to Six Acre Wood, a drive. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of All Saints, Wimbish, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Cole End drivers: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere across Essex, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless — and so leave it off then call 0333 366 0103.