Rowhedge: 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 the motor and your ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. Around Rowhedge, catching it before the motor turns usually means draining and a thorough flush on the spot. Here in advance? In that case the rest covers why it comes about and how to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to the motor — yet plenty of current diesels driven round Rowhedge and Fingringhoe hold a second fluid as well. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
Each tank has a filler of its own. Plenty of cars share a single flap for both, whereas others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. The mistake grows in the gap between the two.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Rowhedge: how it happens
Carelessness seldom causes it. What does is three things coming up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Head Street before work, or in the car park outside The Anchor on the way home.
Then, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — since a rental car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
Nothing halts the tip once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it takes place in Wivenhoe or the middle of Rowhedge, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Be it a Rowhedge forecourt or a drive out in Old Heath, spend a couple of seconds on these before anything goes in.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of vehicles mark what belongs in each inlet right there.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by the diesel cap, it's 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 — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Wivenhoe.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Essex that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Rowhedge Road, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park then switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. When both sit under a flap, confirm it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Finish once the tank fills or the bottle is empty; until then, tip gently through the own spout.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Leave out stage five entirely.
Rowhedge: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The short order of things, beginning with no starting your engine. Keep your ignition off too, since on many diesels switching it on by itself starts your fuel pump. Diluting it with more diesel fails, because AdBlue settles to the base instead of blending — and that's where your fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Murco, Tesco or another forecourt will normally lend a hand pushing the car clear when you ask. On your own drive around Rowhedge? Then the vehicle remains where it is.
Already started? Pull over when it's sensible, then turn off. Rowhedge lies under 50 miles from the M11; there, take the first junction. Mileage counts — a quick hop across Rowhedge is a smaller job than driving under 5 miles towards Colchester — so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival in Rowhedge, and what happens next
By St Lawrence Church of England Primary School, Rowhedge, close to Saint Lawrence, East Donyland or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our engineers come to it. Our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, because those replies decide the work and the price. The price is given over the phone, before any van leaves.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. Filter cleaned or, if needed, replaced; clean diesel in; then a test of your car. The engine is started next and tested to make sure it runs smoothly, all before we head off.
Unrun vehicles mostly mean a half-hour job from arrival. The kit is fine on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. It's worth checking your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Rowhedge and where it is
Rowhedge is a small village on the coast of Essex, situated near the mouth of the River Colne and close to the city of Colchester. Rowhedge has a population of around 1777 people and is characterized by semi-detached housing. Rowhedge sits at a low elevation of approximately 5 metres above sea level, making it a coastal community with proximity to nearby places like Wivenhoe and High Park Corner. Rowhedge is also within commuting distance to London, being around 52 miles away.
Rowhedge and Essex: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout CO postcodes, the vans that cover Rowhedge — a coastal village — work the nearby places too, Black Horse Corner and High Park Corner included. Fastest of all: quote a CO5 7 postcode to the van.
The car stays put. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Wivenhoe Congregational Church, a lay-by on the way to Pearson's Quay, a driveway. Tricky to explain, like the back of St Monica Roman Catholic Church? Close to a county line? Asking is better than guessing, and so phone.
In short, for Rowhedge drivers
Always, the cap; after that, the pour. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it stands, wherever around Essex: keep the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103.