Sunnymede: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave the engine and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Normally, when the engine has not turned, it is drained and fully rinsed where the vehicle is around Sunnymede. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page explains the why it takes place and the ways to prevent it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Diesel feeds the engine — yet many modern diesels seen about Sunnymede and Tye Common hold another fluid too. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to clean them, from its own tank.
Each tank has one filler of its own. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place both together under one flap. Diesel goes in on every forecourt call-out, again and again. The AdBlue side is filled far less frequently, usually from a bottle, and usually by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in that gap that the slip happens.
Sunnymede: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Haste comes from the warning. The car warns 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 Cavell Road, or on the way home in the car park outside Billericay Brewing Company.
New-to-you motors come second, too. Rentals, new vehicles and company motors place their fillers in new places, and the hand reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in just as readily, and after the pour starts, no part halts it. Whether it takes place in Billericay or the middle of Sunnymede, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these before pouring, at a forecourt around Sunnymede or a driveway over in Great Burstead. 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 caps usually are not.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Look inside your fuel flap: many vehicles have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask as you pick up a rental or company car — from Billericay's car park, say — rather than when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Anywhere around Essex the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of The Courtyard.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting your car, close the cap and check a second time that the diesel cap was never opened off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Stage five is off limits.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Sunnymede?
Don't start your engine: that is how the short order of things begins. Keep your ignition off as well, since on many diesels it by itself runs the pump. Topping up with diesel will not dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of your tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
Ask the attendants to help roll your car clear of the pump if you are at a forecourt — the BP, the another forecourt nearby or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Sunnymede.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. On the M25, under 10 miles from Sunnymede, that means the next exit. A short hop across Sunnymede is a smaller job than a run towards Chelmsford, under 10 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival around Sunnymede, and what occurs next
The van reaches the vehicle anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside Billericay Baptist Church, or by Sunnymede Primary School. Both the work and our price rest on three replies — what liquid, what amount, and if it's run — so our technicians ask. No one sets off before you have had the quote by phone.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole 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 does not wash out on its own. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Before we leave, our engineers fire it up and confirm that it's running properly.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where your motor has not run need roughly half an hour once we arrive. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. It is worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Sunnymede
Sunnymede is a suburban area in Essex, situated on the riverside with an elevation of 59 metres, and is located near the cities of Chelmsford and London. Sunnymede has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are the most predominant. Sunnymede is close to nearby places such as Billericay, South Green, and Gooseberry Green, and is home to a population of approximately 4717 residents. Sunnymede's riverside setting provides a unique character to the area.
AdBlue drains about Sunnymede, and Essex beyond
Over CM postcodes, our vans covering Sunnymede — a residential suburb — work the nearby locations too, Gooseberry Green and South Green included. A postcode starting CM11 2 gets our van to you fastest.
Moving the car is not necessary. Wherever it sits — beside St John the Divine, Outwood Common, on a layby heading to Black Cat Meadow, at home — that's where it gets drained. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Billericay United Reformed Church.
For Sunnymede drivers, the short version
Pour no AdBlue until you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around Essex, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — and so leave it off then phone 0333 366 0103.