Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Alderwood Terrace
Keep the engine and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Caught before your motor runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Alderwood Terrace. Reading in advance? In that case the rest covers how it happens and what to stop it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Plenty of newer diesels in Hainault, like those in Alderwood Terrace, carry on two liquids; the motor takes only your diesel. Its own tank holds it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, where a spray cleans the fumes.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Many of vehicles have a single flap for the two, whereas others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled constantly. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank take place in Alderwood Terrace?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
Hurry follows from the warning. The vehicle warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off Five Oaks Lane, or on the way home in the car park at the pub in the village.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part halts the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Marks Gate or the middle of Alderwood Terrace: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Whether a Alderwood Terrace forecourt or a drive over in Chase Cross, spend a few seconds on these before anything goes in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the flap and look for a label — plenty of motors show which belongs in each inlet just there.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler is if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Chadwell Heath, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Greater London that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Olive Grove, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park and switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the 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 the car, close the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap never came off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Never go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Alderwood Terrace?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the motor. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch it on. Topping up with diesel will not weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
The staff at Esso, JET or any forecourt will usually lend a hand to push the car clear if you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway in Alderwood Terrace.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Leave the M11 — under 5 miles out of Alderwood Terrace — at the next junction. About how far did it go? Hopping across Alderwood Terrace is less work than a run of under 15 miles towards London, so tell us.
When our technicians turn up in Alderwood Terrace, what happens?
The van comes to the vehicle wherever it has come to rest — your own drive, near Foxburrows Children's Farm, or outside Oasis Academy Pinewood. Our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it has run, because those answers settle the work and our quote. On the call itself, you are told the quote — before dispatch.
Then your tank is cleared and your system purged thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. The motor is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs smoothly, all before our engineers head off.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once our technicians arrive, provided the motor hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet at night beside a house. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Alderwood Terrace
Alderwood Terrace is a locality in Greater London, situated approximately 13.5 miles from central London. Alderwood Terrace is characterized by its flat-type housing and is located near other localities such as Marks Gate, Collier Row, and Chigwell Row. Alderwood Terrace has a population of around 909 residents and is positioned at an elevation of 39 metres above sea level.
AdBlue drains around Alderwood Terrace and across Greater London
Collier Row and Chigwell Row are among the places near Alderwood Terrace, a small village, that the same teams cover, over IG postcodes. Quote a postcode that starts IG7 4, and our van arrives quickest.
Your car doesn't need to shift. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Hainault Golf Club, a side street close to Redbridge Cycling Centre: we drain the car where it stands. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Woodhenge.
The short version for Alderwood Terrace people
Read the cap before you pour. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it wherever it stands, wherever around Greater London: keep the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103.