Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Colham Green: Why It Happens
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and the ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Colham Green. Nothing happened yet? Below, the rest of the page covers the reasons it takes place and the ways to avoid it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Many modern diesels on the roads around Colham Green and Cowley carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. Its own tank holds it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where a spray cleans the fumes.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Plenty of vehicles share a single flap for both, while some put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less frequently. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place in Colham Green?
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things lining up at once.
On a drive off Colham Green Road before work, or in the car park at The Turk's Head on the way home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car tells you, and once it's empty, limp mode follows.
New-to-you cars are next, as well. Hire cars, new motors and company vehicles put their fillers in new places, and the hand reaches for the cap it 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 pour after it has started. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Colham Green or out in Hillingdon Heath.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a drive in Cowley Peachey or a forecourt around Colham Green.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside West Drayton, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
When the light comes on, wherever across Greater London, follow this routine.
- Switch off once parked — flat ground, motor stopped, and never in a rush beside Colham Road on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap, then check again — making sure the diesel cap stayed closed throughout. Only then, start your car.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop right there. Never carry on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Colham Green already?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting your engine. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the vehicle on. Filling up with diesel will not thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of the tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, BP or another — the staff will usually help push the vehicle away, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive around Colham Green.
Already started? Stop when it's sensible, then turn off. On the M25, under 3 miles from Colham Green, that means the next exit. Distance matters — a quick hop across Colham Green makes a smaller job than heading under 15 miles to Westminster — so say about how far it went.
Our arrival in Colham Green, and what occurs next
By Colham Manor Primary School, near Baitul Aman Mosque or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, we come to it. Which liquid got in, the amount, and whether it ran: we ask because the answers set the work and quote. You get that price on the phone, before anyone sets off.
After that: draining, then a full flush of the whole system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Before leaving, our engineers fire it up and make sure that it's running smoothly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after we get there, as long as your engine hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet after dark beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Colham Green itself
Colham Green is a suburban area in the western part of Greater London, situated near the River Colne and the Grand Union Canal. Colham Green has a mix of semi-detached housing and other residential properties, with nearby open spaces including Hillingdon Heath and Cowley Peachy. Colham Green is located about 14 miles from central London, with good transport links to Westminster and other parts of the city. Colham Green sits at an elevation of around 43 metres above sea level, in a gently sloping area of the Thames Valley.
AdBlue drains across Greater London, Colham Green included
As a residential suburb, Colham Green shares its vans surrounding areas — Hayes End, Cowley Peachy — all the way across UB postcodes and the wider area around them. A postcode starting UB8 3 gets the van to you fastest.
Your car doesn't need to move. Wherever it sits — near Walter Pomeroy Hall, on a layby heading to the green space at the edge of the village, on a drive — that's where it gets cleared. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Brunel University Sports Park, ring and ask instead of guessing.
For Colham Green drivers, the short version
Tip no AdBlue until you have read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Keep the car off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, throughout Greater London.