Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Thornwood Common: Why It Happens
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then put this page down a moment, leave your ignition and motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, done right where the vehicle stands around Thornwood Common, is normally all it takes if found before your engine runs. Nothing happened yet? Below, the page explains the reasons it takes place and the how to prevent it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads round Thornwood Common and Epping Upland carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, and there spraying cleans the gas.
Every tank has a filler of its own. Some vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have the two together behind one flap. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. Seldom filled, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think what cap it needs. The mistake lives in that gap.
Thornwood Common: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Hurry comes from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off High Road, or heading home in the car park at the pub in the village.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, once started, carries on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Thornwood Common or out in Coopersale.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in North Weald Bassett or a forecourt in Thornwood Common, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Position can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally don't.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many cars have a label there showing 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 Harlow Town, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
For the day the light appears — anywhere you are across Essex — a routine to use.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Carpenters Arms Lane.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud while unscrewing it. It seems silly. It works.
- The two under one flap? Then make sure the lid on your diesel side stays shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Find at the second or third stage that the bottle went into the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Don't carry on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Thornwood Common?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your engine. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
Ask the attendants to help push the car away from the petrol pump if you're on a forecourt — the Harvest Energy, the Shell or anywhere else. Your own drive around Thornwood Common is where it stays.
When the engine has been run by now, pull over somewhere safe then switch it off. Come off the M11 — under a mile out of Thornwood Common — at the first exit. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Thornwood Common is a smaller job than driving under 15 miles to Chelmsford — so say about how far it went.
Thornwood Common: what takes place when our engineers turn up
By Coopersale and Theydon Garnon Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School, near Thornwood Village Hall or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our engineers come to it. Both the work and the quote depend on three answers — which fluid, which amount, and whether it has run — so we ask. On the phone call itself, you hear the quote — ahead of anything else.
Then your tank is drained and the system cleaned thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. Once the filter is flushed — or replaced, if required — clean diesel is added, and finally the car gets tested. After that we fire it up and check it runs smoothly before we leave.
If the motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Nothing upfront; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. It is worth checking your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Thornwood Common, briefly
Thornwood Common is a small village in Essex, situated inland at an elevation of around 79 metres. Thornwood Common lies near the villages of Coopersale and Coopersale Common, and is approximately 14.8 miles from Chelmsford. Thornwood Common has a population of around 688 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Thornwood Common is also relatively close to London, at a distance of 18.4 miles.
AdBlue drains across Essex, Thornwood Common included
Thornwood Common is a rural village, and our vans that cover it also work the places near it, Coopersale Common and Gernon Bushes among them, across the CM postcode area. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting CM16 6.
Shifting the car isn't needed. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Coopersale Village Hall, a lay-by on the way to Epping Upper Clapton Rugby Football Club, a drive. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of North Weald Market.
For Thornwood Common motorists, the short version
Pour no AdBlue till you've read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it stands, anywhere across Essex: keep the car off and call 0333 366 0103.