Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Gay Bowers: Why It Happens
Leave the engine and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out right where the car stands in Gay Bowers, is normally what it takes if found before the engine runs. Reading before the event? Then what follows explains why it happens and how to stop it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
No single liquid but two: that is what many modern diesels near Gay Bowers and Horne Row run, with diesel feeding your engine. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler on each tank. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on a lot of cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. The diesel side is topped up at the pump all the time. Much less frequently, the AdBlue side is topped up — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. It is in the gap that the slip happens.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank take place around Gay Bowers?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a driveway off Gay Bowers Road before work, or in the car park outside The Bakers Arms on the way home: that's where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car warns you, and if it is gone, limp mode follows.
Next, your hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old car — since a rental car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not.
A spouted bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, once started, keeps on. Danbury Common or the middle of Gay Bowers: it is the same few seconds either way.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A few seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a drive in Hyde Chase or a forecourt around Gay Bowers.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check as you pick up a rental or fleet car — from South Woodham Ferrers's car park, say — not when the warning comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Essex that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Capons Lane.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It seems daft. It works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Discover at the second or third step that AdBlue went into the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Stage five stays off limits.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Gay Bowers?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting the engine. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the vehicle on. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
The staff at Esso, Morrisons or any forecourt will usually lend a hand to push the car away if asked. Your own driveway in Gay Bowers is the place it stays.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. On the M25, under 25 miles from Gay Bowers, that means the next exit. A short hop across Gay Bowers is a smaller job than a run towards Chelmsford, under 10 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
What occurs when our engineers turn up around Gay Bowers
Wherever your car came to rest, be it outside Priory Primary School, Bicknacre, near Danbury Mission or on your own drive, our van comes to it. Which liquid got in, the quantity, and if it ran: our technicians ask since the replies set the work and price. Nobody sets off until you've had our quote over the phone.
Next: draining, then a full flush of the entire system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more here than with petrol. After the fuel filter has been cleaned — or replaced, where needed — clean diesel is added, and then your vehicle gets tested. Your engine is started next and tested to confirm it runs properly, all before our engineers head off.
If your engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Gay Bowers and where it is
Gay Bowers is a small hamlet in Essex, situated inland at an elevation of 61 metres, approximately 5.4 miles from Chelmsford. Gay Bowers is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting the area's residential development. Gay Bowers sits near Danbury Common, Runsell Green, and Danbury, within the wider landscape of the Eastern region. Gay Bowers is also within commuting distance of London, being around 33.8 miles from the capital.
Gay Bowers and Essex: AdBlue drains across the area
Gay Bowers is a rural hamlet, and the teams that cover it also work the towns around it, Runsell Green and Danbury among them, across the CM postcode area. A postcode starting CM3 4 gets the van to you fastest.
No need to move the car. Draining takes place right there, be it a driveway, a street by Catholic Church of the English Martyrs, or a layby on the way to Danbury Comon. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Danbury Village sign, ring and ask instead of guessing.
In short, for Gay Bowers people
First, the cap; after that, the tip. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it waits, anywhere in Essex.