Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Great Dunmow: Why It Happens
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Usually, when the engine hasn't run, it's drained and fully flushed where the car sits around Great Dunmow. Not happened yet? Below, the page covers the reasons it happens and the ways to avoid it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many newer diesels around Mill End, like those in Great Dunmow, run on two fluids; your engine takes just the diesel. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust gas to clean it.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on many cars. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. Topping up the diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. Seldom filled, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think which filler to use. The mistake grows in the gap between the two.
Great Dunmow: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
It's seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off High Street before work, or in the car park at The Boars Head on the way home.
Then, the hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — because a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers where 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, so nothing stops the tip once it has started. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Great Dunmow or out in Church End.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Great Dunmow forecourt or a drive out in Bigods, spend a couple of seconds over these before anything goes in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally isn't. Read it rather than going by position.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on plenty of vehicles. Check for it.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by the diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask as you collect a hire car or company car — at Stansted Airport's car park, say — rather than when the warning appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
On the day the light comes on — anywhere it is around Essex — a routine to use.
- Turn off once parked — flat ground, motor stopped, and not in a rush beside White Hart Way at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the car, shut the cap and check a second time that your diesel cap was never opened off.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Stage five stays out.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Great Dunmow already?
Don't start the engine: that is how the short order of things starts. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the vehicle on. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it's the Tesco or the Gulf, ask the staff to help roll your car clear of the pump. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Great Dunmow.
Already started? Stop once it is sensible, then turn off. On the M11, under 10 miles from Great Dunmow, that means the next junction. About how far did it go? Crossing Great Dunmow is less a job than a trip of under 15 miles towards Chelmsford, and so say.
When our technicians get there in Great Dunmow, what happens?
Our technicians come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Dunmow St Mary's Primary School, near Great Dunmow War Memorial or on your own driveway. We ask what got in, about how much, and whether it has run, since the replies decide this work and our price. You get that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out.
Then the tank is emptied and the system flushed thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Then we start the car and check it runs properly before we leave.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor hasn't run take about half an hour once we arrive. Nothing upfront; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. While we travel, take a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Great Dunmow
Great Dunmow is a town situated in the county of Essex, on the banks of the River Chelmer at an elevation of around 75 metres. Great Dunmow has a mix of old and new housing, with detached homes being the predominant type, and is located near other small communities such as Church End and Barnston. Great Dunmow is also close to the city of Chelmsford, which is about 10 miles away, and is around 33 miles from London. Great Dunmow has a population of approximately 10,033 people.
AdBlue drains around Great Dunmow and across Essex
Pharisee Green and Barnston are among the places around Great Dunmow, a riverside town, that the same teams cover, over CM postcodes. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting CM6 1.
Shifting your car is not needed. Wherever it sits — beside United Reformed Church, in a layby en route to Talberds Ley, at home — that is where it is drained. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Dunmow Maltings.
The short version for Great Dunmow drivers
First, the cap; after that, the tip. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Keep the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, across Essex.