Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bexley
Keep your motor and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain plus a full flush, done just where your car stands in Bexley, is normally all it needs when found before the engine runs. Reading before the event? Then the rest covers why it comes about and how to stop it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Many current diesels on the roads about Bexley and Maypole carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. The exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to fresh it, from its own tank.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Some vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place the two side by side under one flap. The diesel side is topped up at the pump all the time. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think which cap it needs. That gap is where the slip lives.
Bexley: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a driveway off Bexley High Street before work, or in the car park at The George heading home: that is where the rushed top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car warns you, and if it is empty, limp mode follows.
Then the car is strange. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part stops the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Old Bexley or the heart of Bexley: it takes the same few seconds either way.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A few seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Blendon or a forecourt around Bexley.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of cars say there which fuel goes where.
- Cannot find it next to the diesel inlet? In that case check below the bonnet or inside the boot — the owner's manual says where.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at the nearest station? Check with the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, rather than when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
On the day the light appears — wherever it is around Greater London — a simple routine to use.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Weir Road.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap works — once you have located the filler and read it.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Spot at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop right there. Leave out stage five altogether.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Bexley already?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with not starting the engine. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels as soon as your ignition goes on — and so keep it off. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
The attendants at the nearest petrol station, Esso or another forecourt will normally lend a hand to push the car away if you ask. If you are on your own drive in Bexley, leave it where it stands.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Bexley sits under 5 miles from the M25; there, take the first exit. About how far did it go? Hopping across Bexley is less a job than a run of under 15 miles to London, and so say.
When our technicians get there in Bexley, what takes place?
By Old Bexley Church of England School, close to Old Bexley Baptist Chapel or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. What liquid was put in, the amount, and if it ran: our technicians ask since those replies decide the work and price. You get that quote on the phone, before anyone heads out.
Then that tank is emptied and the fuel system flushed thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and none of it washes out unaided. Hence it counts more. Once the filter has been cleaned — or renewed, where required — clean diesel is added, and then your car gets tested. The engine is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs correctly, all before our engineers head off.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after our engineers arrive, as long as the engine has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Bexley, for a moment
Bexley is a locality in the London Borough of Bexley, situated on the banks of the River Cray in southeast London. Bexley sits at a low elevation of around 13 metres above sea level, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Bexley is located near other local places such as Old Bexley, Coldblow, and North Cray, and is approximately 12 miles from central London.
AdBlue drains in Bexley and across Greater London
Bexley is a small village, and the vans that cover it also work the places around it, Coldblow and North Cray among them, across the DA postcode area. A postcode starting DA5 1 gets the van to you fastest.
Shifting the car isn't needed. Draining happens on the spot, whether a driveway, a road by Bexley Village Community Library, or a lay-by towards Burnt Ash Hockey Club. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of St John Fisher, ring and ask instead of guessing.
For Bexley people, the short version
Pour no AdBlue until you have read the cap. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it wherever it is, wherever across Greater London: switch the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103.