Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Brentford End
Keep your motor and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Around Brentford End, catching it before your motor runs normally means draining and a thorough flush where it stands. Not happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page covers the why it happens and the how to prevent it altogether.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Diesel goes to the engine — yet plenty of newer diesels driven around Brentford End and Spring Grove carry a second fluid too. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler on each tank. Other cars put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have the two side by side under one flap. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, tipped by a driver who must stop and think which cap it needs. The slip lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur around Brentford End?
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Hurry follows from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off Hawthorn Hatch, or on the way home in the car park outside Coach and Horses.
Next, the hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old car — because a rental car, a new motor or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
Nothing halts the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Brentford End or out in Brentford.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Brentford End forecourt or a driveway out in Kew, spend a few seconds on these before any goes in.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver will know. Ask when you pick up a hire car or company car — from Syon Lane's car park, perhaps — not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
For the day the light comes on — wherever you are in Greater London — a routine to follow.
- Turn off after you park — level ground, engine stopped, and not rushed by London Road at the roadside.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, perhaps, yet it works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two share a flap, confirm it's shut before the bottle comes up.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Skip stage five entirely.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Brentford End?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the motor. Keep the ignition off too, since on many diesels it by itself runs your pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
At a forecourt — Shell, Tesco or another — the attendants will usually help roll the vehicle clear, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Brentford End.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. On the M4, under a mile from Brentford End, that means the next junction. About how far did it go? Hopping across Brentford End is less a job than a run of under 10 miles towards Westminster, and so tell us.
What occurs when our technicians turn up around Brentford End
Our engineers come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Marlborough Primary School, close to The Rose Community Centre or on your own drive. Which fluid went in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our engineers ask since those answers set both work and quote. During the call itself, you are told the quote — before dispatch.
Your system is then flushed thoroughly, once your tank is drained. 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 that counts more here than with petrol. After the fuel filter has been cleaned — or renewed, where needed — clean diesel is added, and finally the vehicle gets tested. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
Unrun vehicles mostly mean a half-hour job after arrival. The kit is fine on a live forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. Nothing upfront; you settle up on the day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. It's worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Brentford End itself
Brentford End is a suburban area in southwest Greater London, situated on the lakeside near the River Thames. Brentford End has a low elevation of around 10 metres and is located approximately 8.4 miles from central London. Brentford End is close to nearby places such as Brentford, Isleworth, and Osterley, and is characterized by predominantly flat housing. Brentford End is a residential community with a population of around 5925 people.
AdBlue drains in Brentford End and across Greater London
Brentford End is a residential suburb, and our teams that cover it also work the towns near it, Isleworth and Osterley among them, across the TW postcode area. A postcode starting TW8 8 gets our van to you fastest.
No need to shift the vehicle. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Toll House, a lay-by on the way to Rose Gardens, a drive. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Syon House, ring and ask instead of assuming.
In short, for Brentford End drivers
Before you pour, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere around Greater London.