Marks Gate: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? In that case set this page aside for now, leave the ignition and engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Marks Gate. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many newer diesels on the roads about Marks Gate and Chadwell Heath carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, where spraying cleans the fumes.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on many cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. The diesel side is fuelled at the petrol pump all the time. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. That gap is where the mistake lives.
Marks Gate: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
Haste follows from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off Collier Row Road, or on the way home in the car park outside The Harrow.
The old car's filler is where your hand reaches — yet a hire car, a new motor or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is the second factor: an unfamiliar motor.
No part halts the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Collier Row or the middle of Marks Gate: 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 driveway in Rise Park or a forecourt around Marks Gate, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- Open the filler flap and look for a label — plenty of vehicles mark which belongs in each inlet right there.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Chadwell Heath? Ask whoever drove the vehicle last before leaving, not when the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Greater London that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Whalebone Lane North, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park then switch off properly.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, but it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the car on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, shut the cap and check again that the diesel cap was never opened off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Skip stage five entirely.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Marks Gate?
Brief order, then. First: your motor stays unstarted. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — so keep it off. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it is the Esso or the JET, ask the attendants to help push your car away from the petrol pump. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Marks Gate.
Where your engine has run already, pull over somewhere safe then turn the car off. The next exit means the place to come off when you are on the M11, under 5 miles from Marks Gate. Distance matters — a quick hop across Marks Gate is a smaller job than heading under 15 miles to London — so say roughly how far it went.
Marks Gate: what takes place when we turn up
Anywhere the car has stopped, whether by Crownfield Junior School, near Wellgate Community Farm or at home, the van travels to it. Our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run, because the answers determine the work and our quote. You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off.
Then your tank is emptied and the fuel system rinsed thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. Testing is last: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and the filter is cleaned or changed as needed. Your engine is started next and tested to be sure it runs correctly, all before our engineers head off.
Unrun vehicles usually mean a half-hour visit after arrival. The kit is safe on a busy filling station, and hushed enough for a driveway late at night. No money upfront; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Marks Gate itself
Marks Gate is a small suburban area in Greater London, situated near the River Roding at an elevation of 39 metres. Marks Gate lies on the northeastern edge of London, approximately 13 miles from the city centre. Marks Gate is characterised by its terraced housing and proximity to nearby places such as Collier Row and Little Heath. Marks Gate is a relatively small community with a population of around 773 residents.
AdBlue drains about Marks Gate, and Greater London beyond
Marks Gate is a residential suburb, and our teams that cover it also work the places around it, Alderwood Terrace and Little Heath among them, across the RM postcode area. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting RM5 2.
The vehicle does not need to move. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Tantony Green, a side street close to Marks Gate Library: our technicians drain the vehicle where it stands. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of St Mark's, Marks Gate.
For Marks Gate drivers, the short version
First, the cap; then, the tip. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere in Greater London, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — so leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.