Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Lexden: Why It Happens
Leave the motor and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Around Lexden, catching it before your motor runs usually leaves a drain and a full flush on the spot. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Diesel goes to your motor — but many newer diesels driven around Lexden and Beacon End hold another fluid as well. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
Each tank has its own filler. Many of vehicles share a single flap for the two, while others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in at each filling station call-out, again and again. The AdBlue side is filled far less often, usually from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake grows in that gap between the two.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Lexden: how it takes place
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Shakespeare Road before work, or in the car park at The Prettygate on the way home.
Then your car is strange. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the pour after it has started. It takes seconds, whether in Shrub End or right in the centre of Lexden.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a drive in Abbey Field or a forecourt around Lexden.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on many vehicles. Check for it.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Check with 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 outside Colchester.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
When the light comes on, wherever across Essex, use this routine.
- Not in a rush on the side of Church Lane, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off first.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave it on.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when 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.
Find at the second or third stage that the bottle went into the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Leave out stage five entirely.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Lexden?
Brief order, then. First: the motor remains off. Leave the ignition off too, because on plenty of diesels it by itself runs your fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
On a forecourt — Esso, East of England Coop or another — the staff will usually help push your car clear, if you ask. If you are on your own drive in Lexden, leave it where it stands.
Already run? Stop when it's safe, then turn off. Lexden lies under 50 miles from the M11; there, take the next junction. A short hop across Lexden is a smaller job than a run towards Colchester, under 3 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
Lexden: what happens when our technicians arrive
Our technicians come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Home Farm Primary School, near Lexden Mount or on your own drive. Our engineers ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, because the answers determine the work and the quote. No one sets off until you have heard the quote over the phone.
Draining the tank comes next, followed by a full flush of your system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and none of it washes away by itself. Hence it matters more. Once your filter has been flushed — or replaced, where required — fresh diesel is added, and finally the car is tested. Before we go, we start the engine and make sure that it's running properly.
Unstarted cars mostly need a half-hour job from the moment we arrive. The equipment is fine on a live forecourt, and quiet enough for a residential street after dark. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Lexden itself
Lexden is a suburban area located near Colchester in Essex, sitting at an elevation of 31 metres in the inland landscape of the Eastern region. Lexden is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock and is situated close to nearby places such as Shrub End and Stanway. Lexden has a population of approximately 4748 residents and is within a short distance of Colchester's city centre. Lexden is also near Chitts Hills, a local area of interest.
Lexden and Essex: AdBlue drains across the area
As a residential suburb, Lexden shares its vans surrounding places — Stanway, Chitts Hills — all the way through CO postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Quote a postcode beginning CO3 4, and our van gets there fastest.
Shifting the car is not necessary. Wherever it stands — beside Bluebottle Grove, in a lay-by heading to Wild Flower, on a drive — that's where it gets cleared. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Saint Leonard, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Lexden people: the short version
Pour nothing until you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere in Essex, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — so leave it off and call 0333 366 0103.