AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Dry Street: Why It Happens and How to Avoid It
Pause reading a minute when the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Dry Street. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to the engine — but many current diesels seen round Dry Street and Kingswood carry a second fluid as well. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on a lot of motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up your diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. That gap is where the slip lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens in Dry Street
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Haste comes from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a driveway off Dry Street, or heading home in the car park at Castlemayne.
The old car's filler is where your hand reaches — but a rental car, a new motor or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That is the second thing: a strange motor.
Third, the spout fits: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in just as readily, and after the pour starts, no part halts it. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Dry Street or out in Westley Heights.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you tip anything, on a drive in Lee Chapel or a forecourt in Dry Street.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually don't.
- On plenty of cars, size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside your fuel flap: many vehicles carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it is when your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Basildon, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
Anywhere around Essex the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Turn off after you park — flat ground, engine off, and never in a rush by Hammond Close at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Before you start your car, close the cap and look again that the diesel cap never opened off.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Step five is out.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Dry Street?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your engine. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of your tank, right where fuel is taken from.
Ask the staff to help roll your car away from the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Murco, the BP or anywhere else. If you're on your own drive in Dry Street, leave the car where it is.
Already started? Stop once it is sensible, then switch off. Come off the M25 — under 10 miles out of Dry Street — at the next junction. Distance counts — a short hop across Dry Street is a smaller job than driving under 15 miles towards Southend-on-Sea — so say roughly how far it went.
Our arrival in Dry Street, and what happens next
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Chapel Hill Primary School & Nursery, near Basildon Sports Centre or on your own driveway. Our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it's run, because the answers settle the work and our price. Nobody heads out until you've had the price over the phone.
Draining the tank comes next, then a full flush of the system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and neither clears out unaided. That is why it counts more. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Before we leave, we start it and make sure that it is running correctly.
With pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor hasn't run take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. Your insurer usually wants an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both once this job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. It is worth checking your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Dry Street and where it is
Dry Street is a locality in Essex, situated inland at an elevation of around 68 metres, approximately 24.7 miles from London. Dry Street is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting the area's residential nature. Dry Street is close to several nearby places, including Westley Heights, Lee Chapel South, and Langdon Hills, and is about 11.5 miles from the city of Southend-on-Sea.
AdBlue drains in Dry Street and across Essex
Throughout SS postcodes, the teams covering Dry Street — a small village — work the nearby locations too, Langdon Hills and Lee Chapel South among them. A postcode starting SS16 5 gets our van to you fastest.
Shifting the vehicle isn't necessary. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to William Langdon Woodward/Poacher Woodsman, a lay-by on the way to Martinhole Woods, a driveway. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of The Snake and Mouse Sculpture.
The short version for Dry Street motorists
First, the cap; after that, the pour. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep the car switched off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, across Essex.