AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Stratford St Mary: How It Occurs and How to Avoid It
Keep the motor and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Around Stratford St Mary, catching it before the engine turns normally leaves a drain and a full flush on the spot. Here before the event? Then what follows explains how it happens and how to prevent it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads about Stratford St Mary and Parney Heath carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
Every tank comes with a filler of its own. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up constantly. The AdBlue side is filled far less frequently, normally from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. The error lives in that gap.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Stratford St Mary: how it happens
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from your car, and letting it run out leads to limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Tallyho Corner, or outside The Anchor on the way home after work.
The old car's cap is where your hand goes — yet a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That's a second factor: a strange vehicle.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the pour after it has started. It's a few seconds, whether in Dedham or bang in the heart of Stratford St Mary.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Look at these before pouring, at a forecourt in Stratford St Mary or a driveway out in Holton St Mary. A few seconds, no more.
- Read the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- Many motors give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of vehicles. Check for it.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask when you collect a hire car or company car — at Manningtree's car park, say — not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
The day the light comes on, anywhere around Suffolk, use this routine.
- Turn off after you park — level ground, motor off, and not in a rush by Upper Street on the verge.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It seems daft. It does the trick.
- Both under a single flap? Then confirm the cap on the diesel side stays shut before raising the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Before starting your car, close the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap was never came off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Leave out stage five entirely.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Stratford St Mary?
Short order, then. First: the motor remains off. Do not switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
On a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, Shell or another — the attendants will normally help roll the car away, when you ask. If you're on your own drive in Stratford St Mary, leave the vehicle where it sits.
Where the motor has been run already, pull over somewhere safe and turn it off. The next junction means the place to leave when you're on the M11, under 50 miles from Stratford St Mary. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Colchester, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Stratford St Mary.
Stratford St Mary: what occurs when our engineers turn up
Our van comes to your car anywhere it stopped — your own drive, near Stratford St Mary Parish Room, or outside Stratford St Mary Primary School. Those replies decide this work and our price, so our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and if it's run. No one sets off until you have had our price over the phone.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the entire system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. After the fuel filter has been cleaned — or replaced, where required — clean diesel is added, and then the car is tested. The engine is started next and checked to confirm it runs smoothly, all before our engineers head off.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once our engineers arrive, as long as your engine hasn't run — and the pumps we use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. Nothing upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Before we get there, have a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Stratford St Mary and where it is
Stratford St Mary is a village situated on the banks of the River Stour in Suffolk, with a low elevation of around 9 metres above sea level. Stratford St Mary lies near the Essex border, close to the nearby villages of Dedham, Higham, and East Bergholt. Stratford St Mary has a population of approximately 753 residents, predominantly living in detached houses. Stratford St Mary is located about 6 miles from Colchester and around 57 miles from London.
Stratford St Mary and Suffolk: AdBlue drains across the area
Higham and East Bergholt are among the towns around Stratford St Mary, a village, that the same vans cover, throughout CO postcodes. A postcode starting CO7 6 gets the van to you fastest.
There's no need to move your car. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street close to Stratford St Mary Chapel, a lay-by on the way to River Garden, a driveway. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Stratford Saint Mary Village Sign.
For Stratford St Mary people, the short version
Tip no AdBlue until you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere across Suffolk, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — so leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.