How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Clapham Park
Stop here a minute if your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Clapham Park. The remainder of this page covers why it happens and how to ensure it does not — handy if you're reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads round Clapham Park and Balham carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas and cleans it.
Every tank comes with a filler of its own. Some motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty more have the two side by side behind one flap. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. The mistake grows in the gap between the two.
Clapham Park: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a drive off Shandon Road before work, or in the car park outside The Abbeville heading home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it is gone, limp mode kicks in.
The old car's filler is where the hand reaches — but a hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That is a second factor: an unfamiliar motor.
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 once it has started. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Clapham Park or out in Poynders Parade.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Clapham Park forecourt or a drive out in Stockwell, take a couple of seconds over these before any is poured in.
- Position misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue ones are often blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by the diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Clapham High Street.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Greater London that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Abbeville Road, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park and switch off properly.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It seems daft. It works.
- The two behind a single flap? Then confirm the lid on the diesel side is still closed before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, and check once more — confirm your diesel filler stayed shut throughout. After that, start your car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Never carry on to stage five.
Clapham Park: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Don't start the engine: that is how the short order of things begins. Leave the ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels it alone runs your fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Shell, Sainsbury's or another forecourt will usually lend a hand to push your car away if you ask. If you are on your own drive in Clapham Park, leave it where it sits.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your motor has already run. On the M4, under 10 miles from Clapham Park, that means the next exit. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Clapham Park makes a smaller job than heading under 5 miles towards Westminster — so say roughly how far it went.
Our arrival around Clapham Park, and what happens next
Outside Bonneville Primary School, close to Parish Church of the Holy Spirit or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Which liquid went in, the amount, and whether it ran: our technicians ask since those answers decide the work and quote. The quote comes over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
The fuel system is then flushed thoroughly, after that tank is drained. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that matters more here than with petrol. After the filter has been cleaned — or replaced, where needed — fresh diesel is added, and then your vehicle is tested. Your engine is started next and tested to confirm it runs correctly, all before our engineers go.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where your motor has not run need about 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. It's worth checking your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Clapham Park and where it is
Clapham Park is a suburban area in south London, situated approximately 3.7 miles from central London and 3.3 miles from Westminster. Clapham Park sits at an elevation of around 26 metres, with its predominant housing stock consisting of flats. Clapham Park is located near several notable areas, including Poynders Parade, Clapham Common, and Clapham. Clapham Park has a population of around 17,108 people.
Clapham Park and Greater London: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout SW postcodes, the vans covering Clapham Park — a residential suburb — work the surrounding places too, Clapham and Clapham Common included. A postcode starting SW4 9 gets our van to you fastest.
There's no need to shift the car. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Bandstand Beds Community Garden, a side street near Semokwan Hapkido Academy: we drain it where it is. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Jack Hobbs, ring and ask rather than guessing.
For Clapham Park people, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, throughout Greater London.