How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Eastend
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case set this page down for now, keep the ignition and engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Eastend. 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.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Not one fluid but two: that's how many newer diesels around Eastend and Hare Street run, with diesel for your motor. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where a spray cleans the fumes.
Different tanks, different fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the layout on many vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Filling your diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less frequently, normally from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Eastend: how it occurs
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a driveway off Parkway before work, or in the car park outside The White Hart heading home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car warns you, and if it's empty, limp mode follows.
The old car's cap is where the hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That is the second factor: a new car.
A spout-topped bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, once begun, keeps on. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Eastend or out in Pinnacles.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A couple of seconds is all these take — so check them before you pour anything, on a drive in Eastwick or a forecourt in Eastend.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Plenty of cars give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Open the flap and check for a label — many cars show what belongs in which filler just there.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Roydon, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Essex that is.
- Switch off once parked — level ground, motor off, and never rushed by Greenway at the roadside.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, perhaps, yet it works.
- The two under a single flap? So make sure the lid on the diesel side is still closed before raising the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then look again — confirm your diesel cap stayed closed throughout. Only then, start the vehicle.
Find at the second or third step that AdBlue went into the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Leave out stage five entirely.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Eastend already?
The short order of things, beginning with no starting your engine. Leave the ignition off as well, because on many diesels it by itself starts your pump. Topping up with diesel will not weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of the tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it is the Texaco or the Esso, ask the attendants to help roll your car away from the petrol pump. On your own drive around Eastend? Then your car stays put.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Come off the M11 — under 5 miles out of Eastend — at the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Eastend is smaller a job than a trip of under 25 miles to St Albans, and so tell us.
What occurs when our technicians get there around Eastend
Wherever your car came to rest, whether outside Roydon Primary Academy, near Harlow Greyhound Stadium or on your own drive, our van comes to it. The answers decide this work and the price, and so we ask what got in, about how much, and if it has run. You hear that price on the phone, before anyone heads out.
Then your tank is cleared and the fuel system rinsed thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither clears out by itself. That is why it matters more. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
If your engine has not 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 after dark. Your insurer will ask for an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. While we travel, take a look at your insurance documents; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Eastend itself
Eastend is a small suburban area in Essex, situated on the riverside with an elevation of around 56 metres. Eastend lies approximately 20 miles from London and is close to nearby places such as Pinnacles, Roydon, and Halls Green. Eastend has a relatively small population of around 506 people, with a predominance of flat-type housing. Eastend is also near the city of St Albans, which is about 17 miles away.
AdBlue drains around Eastend, and Essex beyond
Over CM postcodes, the vans covering Eastend — a residential suburb — work the surrounding locations too, Halls Green and Roydon among them. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting CM19 5.
The car remains put. Anywhere it stands — beside Harlow Arena, on a layby heading to Harlow Town FC, on a drive — that's where it gets cleared. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Runaway Rotavator.
For Eastend motorists, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it stands, anywhere around Essex: switch the car off and call 0333 366 0103.