Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Suttons: Why It Occurs
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Around Suttons, finding it before the motor turns usually leaves a drain and a thorough flush on the spot. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Diesel feeds the engine — yet many current diesels driven around Suttons and Great Wakering hold another fluid too. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank comes with a filler of its own. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on a lot of vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally goes in out of a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think what cap it needs. The mistake grows in the gap between them.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place in Suttons
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the vehicle, and running dry means limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Peel Avenue, or at the pub in the village on the way home that evening.
New-to-you vehicles are next, as well. Rentals, new cars and company motors place their fillers differently, and the hand reaches for the cap 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. Cupids Corner or the middle of Suttons: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Be it a Suttons forecourt or a drive over in Samuels Corner, take a few seconds on these before anything goes in.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Plenty of motors give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Shoeburyness, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
For the day the light appears — wherever you are around Essex — a routine to follow.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time to spare — not rushing on the side of Wakering Road.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you've found your filler and read it.
- The two behind one flap? So confirm the lid on your diesel filler stays closed before raising the bottle.
- Stop once your tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour slowly through its built-in spout.
- Close the cap, and look again — making sure the diesel cap remained closed throughout. After that, start your car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Don't go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Suttons already?
Short list, then. Top of that: the engine remains off. Keep the ignition off too, because on many diesels it by itself runs your 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 thin it.
The attendants at Asda, BP or another forecourt will usually lend a hand to push the vehicle away when you ask. At home around Suttons? Then the vehicle remains where it is.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Suttons lies under 25 miles from the M2; on it, use the next exit. A short hop across Suttons is a smaller job than a run towards Southend-on-Sea, under 5 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
What occurs when our technicians arrive around Suttons
Outside Friars Primary School and Nursery, near Friars Baptist Church or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, we come to it. The replies determine this work and our price, and so we ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it has run. During the phone call itself, you are told our quote — before anything else.
Then the tank is cleared and the fuel system purged thoroughly. More than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: the crystals build up, some metals corrode, and none of that clears out unaided, however long it sits. The filter flushed or, if needed, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a test of the vehicle. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine hasn't run need about half an hour once our engineers are there. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. It's worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Suttons, for a moment
Suttons is a small suburban area located on the coast of Essex, with an elevation of approximately 2 metres above sea level. Suttons sits near the mouth of the Thames Estuary, close to the nearby settlements of Cupids Corner and North Shoebury. Suttons is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, reflecting the typical residential development of the region. Suttons is situated near the city of Southend-on-Sea, about 4.2 miles away, and is also about 40.3 miles from London.
Suttons and Essex: AdBlue drains across the area
Over SS postcodes, the teams that cover Suttons — a residential suburb — work the surrounding spots too, Shoeburyness and North Shoebury among them. Quote a postcode beginning SS3 9, and the van arrives quickest.
The vehicle doesn't need to move. Anywhere it sits — beside St Peters, South Shoebury, on a lay-by en route to Cupid's Country Club, at home — that is where it gets emptied. Assuming won't help at the back of Great Wakering Memorial Hall, on a border, or somewhere hard to pin down; ring and check.
For Suttons drivers, the short version
Tip nothing till you've read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Keep the vehicle switched off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, throughout Essex.