How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Harlow Common
Stop reading a minute if the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Usually, when your motor has not turned, it is drained and fully cleaned where the vehicle is in Harlow Common. The rest of this page explains why it happens and how to ensure it does not — useful if you're reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Many newer diesels on the roads round Harlow Common and Hastingwood carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to clean them, from its own tank.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on a lot of cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and usually by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in that gap that the slip happens.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank happen in Harlow Common?
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
On a driveway off Latton Street before work, or in the car park outside The White Horse heading home: that's where the hurried top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it is gone, limp mode kicks in.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — yet a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That's the second factor: an unfamiliar vehicle.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the pour once it has started. Potter Street or the middle of Harlow Common: it takes the same few seconds either way.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt around Harlow Common or a drive over in Brays Grove. A few seconds, no more.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of cars say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by the diesel cap, it's in your 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 — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Harlow Town.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
The day the light goes on, wherever in Essex, follow this routine.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — not rushing on the side of Harlow Common.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, yes, but it works.
- The two under a single flap? Then make sure the cap on your diesel filler is still closed ahead of raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Spot at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? Then stop right there. Stage five is off limits.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Harlow Common?
Brief list, then. Top of it: your motor stays unstarted. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch it on. Topping up with diesel won't weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the bottom of that tank, just where fuel is taken from.
At a forecourt — BP, Shell or any other — the staff will usually help roll the car away, if you ask. If you are on your own drive in Harlow Common, leave the vehicle where it sits.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the engine has already run. Harlow Common sits under a mile from the M11; there, use the first junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Chelmsford, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Harlow Common.
When our technicians get there around Harlow Common, what occurs?
Outside Potter Street Academy, near St Mary Magdalene, Harlow or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. The replies settle this work and our price, and so our engineers ask what was put in, about how much, and if it has run. You get that price by phone, before anyone sets off.
Then your tank is drained and the system cleaned thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. Filter flushed or, where it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a test of the car. Then we fire it up and confirm it runs correctly before leaving.
Using pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where your motor hasn't run need roughly half an hour once our engineers are there. 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 — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Harlow Common itself
Harlow Common is a suburban area in Essex, situated approximately 20 miles northeast of London and 15 miles west of Chelmsford. Harlow Common sits at an elevation of around 100 metres, near the communities of Potter Street, Latton Bush, and Foster Street. Harlow Common has a population of around 2072 people, predominantly living in terraced housing.
AdBlue drains across Essex, Harlow Common included
Being a residential suburb, Harlow Common shares its vans surrounding areas — Latton Bush, Foster Street — right through CM postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Quote a postcode that starts CM17 9, and the van arrives fastest.
Your car does not need to shift. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Potter Street Community Centre, a lay-by on the way to Harlow Wood, a drive. Assuming doesn't help behind Holy Cross RC Church, on a border, or somewhere awkward to describe; ring and ask.
Harlow Common motorists: the short version
Always, the cap; then, the tip. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere around Essex.