Margaretting: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Margaretting. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Not one fluid but two: that's how plenty of modern diesels around Margaretting and Ingatestone run, with diesel feeding your engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Plenty of motors share a single flap for both, while others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at every forecourt visit, again and again. Seldom topped up, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think what cap it needs. The mistake grows in the gap between them.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur around Margaretting?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Haste comes from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a driveway off Maldon Road, or heading home in the car park outside The Black Bull.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Third, the spout goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in just as easily, and after the tip begins, no part halts it. It's seconds, be it out in Handley Green or right in the heart of Margaretting.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these first, at a forecourt in Margaretting or a drive over in Greenwoods. Seconds, no more.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually don't.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on many motors. Look for it.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask as you collect a rental or company car — at Ingatestone's car park, perhaps — not once the warning appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
When the light goes on, wherever across Essex, use this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Wantz Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting your car, shut the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap never came off.
Discover at the second or third stage that the bottle went into the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Never go on to stage five.
Margaretting: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting your motor. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — and so leave it off. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help roll your car clear of the pump if you're on a forecourt — the Shell, the Tesco or somewhere else. If you're on your own drive in Margaretting, leave the car where it sits.
Already run? Stop once it's sensible, then switch off. On the M25, under 10 miles from Margaretting, that means the next junction. About how far did it go? Hopping across Margaretting is less work than a run of under 5 miles to Chelmsford, so tell us.
What occurs when we turn up in Margaretting
Outside Margaretting Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School, close to Margaretting Village Sign or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, we come to it. Both the work and the price rest on three answers — which fluid, which amount, and whether it's run — so our engineers ask. You hear that quote on the phone, before anyone sets off.
Then your tank is emptied and the fuel system rinsed thoroughly. More than with petrol, it counts here: crystals build up, some metals are attacked, and nothing clears away on its own, no matter how long it is left. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Before we go, our technicians fire it up and make sure that it's running smoothly.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where your motor hasn't run need about half an hour after our technicians are there. Your insurer will ask for the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. While we travel, have a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Margaretting, briefly
Margaretting is a small village in Essex, situated approximately 4 miles from Chelmsford and 26 miles from London, at an elevation of around 53 metres. Margaretting sits in a rural area surrounded by nearby places such as Handley Green, Margaretting Tye, and Tye Green. Margaretting has a population of around 887 people and predominantly consists of semi-detached housing. Margaretting is characterized by its inland setting and relatively flat landscape.
AdBlue drains across Essex, Margaretting included
Being a rural village, Margaretting shares its vans surrounding areas — Margaretting Tye, Tye Green — right through CM postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting CM4 9.
No need to shift the vehicle. Anywhere it sits — beside Magaretting Village Hall, on a layby heading to Margaretting Pond Park, on a drive — that's where it is emptied. Assuming won't help behind St Margaret of Antioch, Margaretting, on a border, or anywhere hard to pin down; phone and check.
Margaretting motorists: the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it where it stands, anywhere across Essex: keep the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.