Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Marden Ash: Why It Happens
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and your ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Marden Ash. The remainder of this page explains why it happens and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you're reading ahead of time.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Many newer diesels around Greensted, like those in Marden Ash, run on two fluids; your engine gets only the diesel. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to fresh them, from its own tank.
There's a filler for each tank. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have both side by side under one flap. Filling your diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less regularly. It is in that gap that the error lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Marden Ash: how it occurs
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
Hurry comes from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off Stondon Road, or heading home in the car park outside The Stag.
The old car's cap is where the hand reaches — but a rental car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is the second factor: a strange car.
Third, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in just as easily, and once the tip starts, no part stops it. Whether it takes place in Chipping Ongar or the middle of Marden Ash, it's the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Whether a Marden Ash forecourt or a drive out in Shelley, take a few seconds over these before anything is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- Open the flap and check for a label — many vehicles mark which belongs in which filler right there.
- The handbook shows where it lives when your filler is not next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Shenfield, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Essex that is.
- Switch off once parked — flat ground, motor off, and not rushed by Long Fields on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It seems silly. It works.
- Both under one flap? Then confirm the cap on your diesel filler is still closed ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Before starting the car, shut the cap and look again that the diesel cap was never opened off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Stage five is out.
Marden Ash: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Don't start the motor: that is how the short order of things begins. Don't switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel will not dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of the tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Esso, BP or any forecourt will normally help pushing the car away when you ask. If you're on your own driveway around Marden Ash, leave the vehicle where it sits.
When the motor has been run by now, pull over somewhere safe then switch the car off. The next exit means where to come off when you are on the M25, under 5 miles from Marden Ash. A short hop across Marden Ash is a smaller job than a run towards Chelmsford, under 15 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
What happens when our engineers turn up in Marden Ash
The van reaches the vehicle wherever it stopped — your own drive, near St James, Marden Ash, or by Chipping Ongar Primary School. Both the work and our quote depend on three replies — what liquid, what quantity, and if it's run — so our engineers ask. That quote is given over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Next: draining, then a full flush of the whole system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. A test comes at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is flushed or replaced as needed. After that our engineers fire it up and make sure it runs smoothly before we go.
With pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor hasn't run need roughly half an hour once our technicians arrive. Nothing upfront; you settle up that day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Marden Ash itself
Marden Ash is a suburban area in Essex, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 59 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Marden Ash lies approximately 20.8 miles from London and 10 miles from Chelmsford, with nearby places including Chipping Ongar, Hallsford Bridge, and High Ongar. Marden Ash has a population of around 1536 residents, making it a small but distinct community within the wider region. Marden Ash is characterized by its quiet, residential atmosphere, with the River Roding flowing nearby.
AdBlue drains about Marden Ash, and Essex beyond
Hallsford Bridge and High Ongar are among the places around Marden Ash, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, over CM postcodes. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting CM5 9.
The vehicle doesn't need to move. Draining takes place on the spot, whether a driveway, a road by St Martin of Tours, Chipping Ongar, or a layby towards School Grounds. Guessing doesn't help at the back of Chipping Ongar town sign, close to a border, or anywhere awkward to pin down; phone and ask.
The short version for Marden Ash drivers
Before you pour, read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Leave it off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, throughout Essex.