Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Stansted: Why It Happens
Keep your motor and ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out right where the car stands around Stansted, is normally all it takes when found before your motor runs. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Plenty of current diesels on the roads round Stansted and Hodsoll Street carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to fresh them, from its own tank.
There's a filler for every tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on many vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less commonly, usually from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place around Stansted
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from your car, and running out means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Parsons Lane, perhaps at Black Horse on the way home that evening.
Then the car is new. 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.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the pour after it has started. It takes a few seconds, be it in Labour-in-vain or right in the heart of Stansted.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Ash or a forecourt in Stansted.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the filler flap and look for a label — plenty of vehicles show what goes in each inlet just there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler is if it is not by your diesel cap, 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 Borough Green & Wrotham, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
Anywhere in Kent the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Pull in on level, motor off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Hatham Green Lane.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you've found the filler and read the cap.
- The diesel cap stays on. When both sit under a flap, confirm it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Discover at the second or third step that the bottle went in the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Do not go on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Stansted?
Short list, then. First: the motor remains unstarted. The fuel pump runs on many diesels as soon as your ignition goes on — so leave it off. Thinning it with more diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom rather than blending — and that is where the fuel is drawn from.
The attendants at Gulf, Texaco or another forecourt will usually lend a hand pushing your car clear if you ask. At home in Stansted? Then the car stays where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. Stansted lies under 3 miles from the M20; there, use the next junction. A short hop across Stansted is a smaller job than a run towards London, under 25 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our technicians turn up in Stansted, what happens?
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside St. Edmund's Church of England Primary School, near Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Stansted or on your own drive. Those replies settle the work and our quote, and so we ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. Nobody heads out until you have had the quote by phone.
The system is then rinsed thoroughly, once that tank is cleared. 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 that counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. Once your filter has been flushed — or replaced, if required — clean diesel goes in, and then the vehicle is tested. Your engine is started next and checked to be sure it runs correctly, all before our engineers go.
Using pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where your motor hasn't run need roughly half an hour after we are there. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It's worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Stansted, briefly
Stansted is a small village in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of around 175 metres, and is located approximately 21.9 miles from London. Stansted has a population of around 525 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Stansted is near to other small settlements such as Labour-in-vain, Pettings, and Fairseat, and is part of the wider countryside of the South East region. Stansted sits in a rural area with nearby cities, including London, which is about 20.9 miles away.
AdBlue drains around Stansted, and Kent beyond
Being a rural village, Stansted shares its vans nearby places — Pettings, Fairseat — right across TN postcodes and the wider area beyond. A postcode starting TN15 7 gets our van to you fastest.
There's no need to move the car. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to War Memorial, a lay-by on the way to Peckham Wood, a drive. Assuming doesn't help behind Kent Firefighting Museum, close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe; phone and ask.
Stansted drivers: the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere across Kent, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — and so leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.