Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Acton Green
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and your ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, done right where the vehicle stands in Acton Green, is normally all it takes if found before your engine runs. Here before the event? Then what follows explains why it happens and what to stop it ever happening.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Not one fluid but two: that is what many modern diesels around Acton Green and Bedford Park carry, with diesel feeding the motor. Its own tank holds it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where spraying treats the gas.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of cars have a single flap for both, while some move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, poured by a driver who has to stop and think which cap to use. It's in that gap that the slip lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs in Acton Green
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from your car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Antrobus Road, or at The Bollo on the way home that evening.
New-to-you cars are next, too. Rentals, new vehicles and company cars place their fillers in new places, and the hand goes 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 tip after it has started. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Acton Green or out in South Acton.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a drive in Acton or a forecourt around Acton Green.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of cars have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- Cannot see it beside the diesel filler? Then look below the bonnet or inside the boot — the owner's manual will say where.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at South Acton? Ask whoever drove the car last before leaving, rather than once the light goes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
On the day the warning comes on — anywhere you are in Greater London — a simple routine to use.
- Pull in somewhere level, engine off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of Bollo Lane.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It sounds silly. It works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, close the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap was never opened off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Never go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Acton Green?
The short order of things, starting with not starting your motor. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the car on. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it is the BP or the Esso, ask the staff to help roll the vehicle clear of the pump. If you're on your own drive in Acton Green, leave the car where it is.
Already run? Pull over when it is sensible, then turn off. Acton Green lies under a mile from the M4; there, use the first junction. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Acton Green makes a smaller job than driving under 10 miles to Westminster — so say about how far it went.
What happens when our engineers arrive around Acton Green
Anywhere the vehicle has stopped, whether outside Belmont Primary School, near Acton Green Church or on your own drive, the van comes to it. Both the work and the quote rest on three replies — which fluid, what amount, and whether it has run — so our technicians ask. You hear that quote by phone, before anybody heads out.
The system is then cleaned thoroughly, after that tank is drained. Much more than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: crystals build up, some metals are attacked, and none of that washes out on its own, however long it sits. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. The motor is started next and checked to confirm it runs properly, all before our engineers leave.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor has not run need roughly half an hour after our engineers arrive. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Acton Green, briefly
Acton Green is a suburban area in west London, situated near the River Thames and close to the neighbouring areas of South Acton, Chiswick, and Gunnersbury. Acton Green is characterised by its predominantly flat-type housing and is located approximately 6.2 miles from Westminster. Acton Green sits at a low elevation of around 13 metres above sea level, reflecting its proximity to the Thames Valley. Acton Green is a densely populated area with around 13475 residents.
AdBlue drains around Acton Green, and Greater London beyond
Chiswick and Gunnersbury are among the places near Acton Green, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, throughout W postcodes. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting W4 5.
The vehicle remains put. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Gunnersbury Triangle Local Nature Reserve, a side street close to E. M. Forster: we drain the vehicle where it is. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Rockery.
Acton Green motorists: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave the car switched off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, throughout Greater London.