Hockley: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Pause here a minute if the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Hockley. Nothing happened yet? Below, the rest of the page covers the reasons it happens and the ways to avoid it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel feeds the engine — but many current diesels seen around Hockley and Stroud Green hold a second fluid as well. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the fumes to fresh them, from its own tank.
There's a filler for every tank. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is topped up at the pump all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less commonly. That gap is where the error lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place around Hockley
Carelessness rarely causes it. Instead is three things lining up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Southend Road before work, or in the car park at The Spa on the way home.
Then, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — because a hire car, a new motor or a company car places the fillers where your last one did not.
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. Hawkwell or the middle of Hockley: it takes the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Hullbridge or a forecourt around Hockley, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally are not.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Look inside your fuel flap: many vehicles carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says which it lives when the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at the nearest station, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
When the light comes on, wherever around Essex, use this routine.
- Not in a rush on the side of Main Road, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- 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, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at the second or third step that the bottle went in the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Step five is off limits.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Hockley?
Short order, then. Top of it: your motor remains unstarted. The fuel pump runs on many diesels the moment your ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
At a forecourt — Esso, BP or another — the staff will usually help push your car clear, when you ask. Your own drive in Hockley is the place it stays.
Already run? Stop when it's sensible, then turn off. Hockley sits under 25 miles from the M25; on it, take the next exit. Distance counts — a short hop across Hockley is a smaller job than driving under 5 miles to Southend-on-Sea — so say roughly how far it went.
Our arrival in Hockley, and what takes place next
Our engineers come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Lift Westerings, close to Hockley Library or on your own driveway. Those answers settle this work and the price, so we ask what was put in, about how much, and if it's run. On the phone call itself, you hear our quote — before anything else.
Emptying your tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the fuel system. 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 counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. A test is at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the filter is flushed or changed as needed. We don't leave until it has been started and is running smoothly.
Using pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor has not run take roughly half an hour once our technicians are there. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Hockley
Hockley is a village in Essex, situated inland at an elevation of 51 metres, approximately 34 miles from London. Hockley lies near the city of Southend-on-Sea, with nearby places including Hawkwell, Mount Bovers, and Ashingdon. Hockley has a population of around 2945 people, predominantly living in detached housing.
AdBlue drains about Hockley, and Essex beyond
Over SS postcodes, the vans covering Hockley — a rural village — work the nearby places too, Ashingdon and Mount Bovers included. Give a postcode beginning SS5 4, and the van gets there quickest.
The vehicle does not need to move. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Marylands Wood, a side street near Emmanuel, Hawkwell: we drain it where it sits. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Hockley Evangelical Church.
For Hockley motorists, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it waits, anywhere across Essex.