Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Cranes: Why It Happens
Pause here for a moment if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. In Cranes, finding it before your engine turns normally leaves draining and a thorough flush on the spot. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Diesel feeds your engine — yet plenty of newer diesels driven about Cranes and Crays Hill carry another fluid as well. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to clean them, from its own tank.
There is a filler for each tank. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on many motors. On others, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in your boot instead. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. The slip lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur around Cranes?
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle 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 drive off Paycocke Road before work, or in the car park outside The Crane on the way home.
Next, your hand goes for the cap it knew on the old car — because a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts 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, and so nothing stops the tip once it has started. Burnt Mills or the middle of Cranes: it takes the same few seconds either way.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Barstable or a forecourt around Cranes, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside the fuel flap: plenty of vehicles carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Can't find it next to your diesel filler? Then check beneath the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook will say where.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Basildon, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
For the day the light comes on — wherever you are around Essex — a routine to follow.
- Switch off once parked — flat ground, motor stopped, and not in a rush beside Cranes Close on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the vehicle on.
- Tip 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.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Step five is out.
Cranes: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
The short order of things, starting with not starting the engine. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the vehicle on. Filling up with diesel will not weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the bottom of that tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
The attendants at BP, Sainsbury's or another forecourt will normally lend a hand to push the vehicle clear when asked. On your own drive in Cranes? Then your car remains where it is.
Already started? Stop once it is sensible, then switch off. Cranes lies under 10 miles from the M25; there, take the first junction. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Cranes makes a smaller job than heading under 15 miles to Southend-on-Sea — so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival around Cranes, and what happens next
Our van comes to the vehicle wherever it has come to rest — your own drive, near St Peters, or by Whitmore Primary School and Nursery. Our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, since those answers decide this work and our quote. You get that quote by phone, before anybody heads out.
Next: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Much more than with petrol, it counts here: the crystals build up, certain metals are attacked, and nothing clears out unaided, no matter how long it sits. After the filter is flushed — or renewed, if needed — fresh diesel goes in, and then your vehicle gets tested. Then we fire it up and check it runs properly before we go.
If your motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Cranes and where it is
Cranes is a suburban area in Essex, situated approximately 27 miles from London and 10 miles from the city of Southend-on-Sea. Cranes lies near other local areas such as Burnt Mills, Fryerns, and Felmore, and is characterized by its terraced housing. Cranes has a population of around 1918 people and is located at a relatively low elevation of 25 metres above sea level.
AdBlue drains across Essex, Cranes included
Over SS postcodes, our vans covering Cranes — a residential suburb — work the surrounding places too, Felmore and Fryerns included. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting SS14 3.
The vehicle doesn't need to move. We drain it where it is — a side street near Fryerns Baptist Church, a lay-by on the way to Noke Wood, a drive. Guessing doesn't help at the back of Holy Cross, Basildon, close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe; ring and ask.
For Cranes motorists, the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere across Essex, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — so leave it off then call 0333 366 0103.