Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Hare Street: Why It Occurs
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and your ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, done right where the car sits around Hare Street, is normally all it needs when found before your motor runs. Not happened yet? Below, the page covers the reasons it happens and the how to prevent it for good.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
No single liquid but two: that's how plenty of modern diesels near Hare Street and Pinnacles run, with diesel for the engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
There's a filler for every tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on a lot of cars. On others, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Filling the diesel side at the pump happens constantly. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, tipped by a driver who has to stop and think what cap it needs. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens around Hare Street
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Helions Road, perhaps at The Golden Swift on the way home after work.
The old car's filler is where your hand goes — but a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That is the second thing: a strange vehicle.
Nothing stops the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Hare Street or out in The High.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Be it a Hare Street forecourt or a drive over in Great Parndon, spend a couple of seconds on these before anything goes in.
- Position can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue ones are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of motors carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- 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.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Harlow Town.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
On the day the light appears — wherever you are around Essex — a simple routine to follow.
- Turn off after you park — flat ground, motor off, and not rushed by Collins Meadow at the roadside.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, but it works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Discover at the second or third stage that the bottle went in the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Don't carry on to stage five.
Hare Street: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Don't start your engine: that is where the short order of things begins. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — so leave it off. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
At a forecourt — Esso, Texaco or another — the staff will usually help push the vehicle clear, if you ask. Your own drive around Hare Street is the place it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. Come off the M11 — under 3 miles out of Hare Street — at the next junction. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Chelmsford, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Hare Street.
Hare Street: what occurs when our technicians arrive
The van reaches the vehicle wherever it has come to rest — your own drive, near United Reverend Church, or outside Hare Street Community Primary School and Nursery. Those answers settle this work and the price, and so our engineers ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. Nobody sets off until you've had our price over the phone.
Your system is then cleaned thoroughly, after your tank is emptied. More than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: crystals form, some metals corrode, and nothing clears out on its own, no matter how long it sits. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. After that our engineers fire it up and make sure it runs correctly before leaving.
Unstarted vehicles mostly need a half-hour job after the moment we arrive. The equipment is fine on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a driveway late at night. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, take a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Hare Street, briefly
Hare Street is a suburban area in Essex, situated on the riverside with an elevation of around 65 metres. Hare Street lies approximately 20 miles from London and is close to the nearby cities of Chelmsford and Harlow. Hare Street has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly characterised by terraced homes. Hare Street is near other local areas such as The High and Little Parndon.
AdBlue drains about Hare Street, and Essex beyond
Little Parndon and Harlow are among the places near Hare Street, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, over CM postcodes. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting CM19 4.
Moving the vehicle is not needed. Draining takes place right there, whether a driveway, a road by Harlow Youth Centre, or a layby towards Northbrooks Park. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Chief, ring and ask instead of guessing.
In short, for Hare Street motorists
Before you pour, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere across Essex.