Saffron Walden: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Pause here a minute if the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then call 0333 366 0103. Usually, if the motor hasn't run, it's drained and fully purged where your vehicle is in Saffron Walden. The remainder of this page explains why it happens and how to ensure it does not — handy if you are reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels around Littlebury, as well as Saffron Walden, carry on two fluids; the motor takes only the diesel. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
Each tank has its own filler. Some motors keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have the two side by side under one flap. The diesel side is fuelled at the petrol pump all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less commonly. It is in that gap that the mistake happens.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place around Saffron Walden
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
Hurry follows from the warning. The vehicle tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a driveway off Common Hill, or on the way home in the car park at Cellar & Kitchen Bar.
Next, your hand goes for the cap it knew on the old car — since a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
Lastly, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in just as readily, and once the tip starts, no part stops it. It takes seconds, be it in Audley End or right in the centre of Saffron Walden.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Little Walden or a forecourt in Saffron Walden, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- On many motors, size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Audley End, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
On the day the warning comes on — anywhere you are around Essex — a simple routine to use.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Hill Street.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Spot at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? Then stop just there. Leave out stage five altogether.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Saffron Walden already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the engine. Leave your ignition off as well, because on plenty of diesels it by itself runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel will not dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of that tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it is the Tesco or the Gulf, ask the staff to help push the car clear of the pump. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive in Saffron Walden.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. The next exit is where to come off when you're on the M11, under 3 miles from Saffron Walden. About how far did it go? Crossing Saffron Walden is smaller work than a trip of under 15 miles towards Cambridge, so tell us.
Our arrival in Saffron Walden, and what happens next
The van comes to the car wherever it has come to rest — your own drive, near Town Hall, or outside St Mary's Church of England Voluntary Aided Primary School. Both the work and the price depend on three replies — which fluid, which quantity, and whether it's run — so we ask. On the phone call itself, you are told our price — before dispatch.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. More than with petrol, it counts here: crystals form, certain metals are attacked, and nothing washes out on its own, no matter how long it is left. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running properly.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the engine has not run take roughly half an hour after our engineers arrive. The insurer usually wants the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours once the job is done. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. It is worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Saffron Walden and where it is
Saffron Walden is a town situated in the Uttlesford district of Essex, located on the River Cam at an elevation of 58 metres. Saffron Walden has a mix of housing types, with semi-detached homes being predominant, and is close to nearby places such as Audley End and Sewards End. Saffron Walden is also near the city of Cambridge, which is approximately 13.6 miles away, and is about 39 miles from London. Saffron Walden has a population of around 15,686 people.
AdBlue drains across Essex, Saffron Walden included
Being a riverside town, Saffron Walden shares its vans surrounding places — Northend, Sewards End — all the way through CB postcodes and the wider area beyond. Quickest of all: quote a CB10 1 postcode for the van.
Your car doesn't need to move. The drain takes place on the spot, be it a drive, a street by Market Square, or a lay-by on the way to The Common. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Saffron Walden Library.
Saffron Walden drivers: the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, anywhere around Essex: switch the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103.