AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Winter Gardens: How It Occurs and How to Prevent It
Stop reading a minute when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, done just where the car sits around Winter Gardens, is usually what it needs if found before your engine runs. Reading before the event? Then what follows explains why it comes about and what to stop it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of current diesels on the roads round Winter Gardens and Canvey Village carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Some vehicles put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place both together behind one flap. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, poured by a driver who has to stop and think which cap it needs. It is in that gap that the mistake happens.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Winter Gardens: how it occurs
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the car, and letting it run out means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Fairview, or at The Oysterfleet on the way home after work.
Then the car is strange. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand hits 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. Whether it happens in Canvey Island or the middle of Winter Gardens, it's the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A few seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a drive in Newlands or a forecourt in Winter Gardens.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally isn't. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Open the flap and look for a label — plenty of cars show which belongs in which inlet just there.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Benfleet.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
The day the light comes on, anywhere around Essex, follow this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Concord Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the car on.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the car, close the cap and check a second time that the diesel cap never came off.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Never carry on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Winter Gardens already?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting your engine. Leave the ignition off as well, because on many diesels it alone runs the pump. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
The attendants at the nearest petrol station, BP or any forecourt will usually lend a hand to push your car clear when asked. If you are on your own drive around Winter Gardens, leave the car where it sits.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. On the M2, under 15 miles from Winter Gardens, that means the next junction. Distance counts — a quick hop across Winter Gardens is a smaller job than driving under 10 miles to Southend-on-Sea — so say about how far it went.
Our arrival around Winter Gardens, and what occurs next
Outside St Katherine's Church of England Primary School, close to Winter Gardens Baptist Church or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Our engineers ask what got in, about how much, and whether it's run, because the replies decide this work and the price. You hear that quote by phone, before anyone heads out.
Draining that tank comes next, then a thorough flush of your system. Much more than with petrol, it counts here: the crystals build up, certain metals corrode, and none of it washes away unaided, no matter how long it is left. A test is last: before that, clean diesel is added, and the filter is flushed or changed if necessary. Your engine is fired up next and checked to confirm it runs smoothly, all before we go.
Using pumps fine 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 once our engineers are there. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Winter Gardens itself
Winter Gardens is a suburban area located on the coast of Essex, near the city of Southend-on-Sea. Winter Gardens sits at a low elevation of around 1 metre, close to the Thames Estuary and nearby places like Canvey Island and Dutch Village. Winter Gardens is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting the area's residential nature. Winter Gardens is also situated near Sunken Marsh, an area of natural interest.
AdBlue drains around Winter Gardens, and Essex beyond
Dutch Village and Sunken Marsh are among the towns around Winter Gardens, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, throughout SS postcodes. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting SS8 9.
Your car remains where it is. Anywhere it sits — near Canvey Island Kingdom Hall Of Jehovah's Wittness, on a layby en route to Canvey Dyke, on a drive — that's where it gets emptied. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Waterside Farm Leisure Centre, ring and ask instead of guessing.
In short, for Winter Gardens motorists
Tip no AdBlue till you've read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, anywhere in Essex: keep the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.