Craven Walk: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Keep the motor and ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Around Craven Walk, catching it before your motor turns usually leaves draining and a thorough flush on the spot. Here in advance? Then what follows explains how it comes about and how to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Many newer diesels on the roads around Craven Walk and Upper Clapton carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
There's a filler on each tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the layout on many cars. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up constantly. Seldom topped up, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think what filler to use. The mistake lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank happen in Craven Walk?
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the car, and letting it run dry means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Saw Mill Way, or outside Turnpike House on the way home after work.
Next, your hand goes for the cap it knew on the old motor — because a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip once it has started. Whether it takes place in South Tottenham or the middle of Craven Walk, it is the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Craven Walk forecourt or a drive over in Tottenham Green, spend a couple of seconds over these before anything is poured in.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally do not.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Open the flap and check for a label — many motors mark what belongs in which inlet right there.
- The handbook says where it lives if the filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver knows. Check when you collect a hire car or company car — from South Tottenham's car park, say — rather than when the light appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Greater London that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Timberwharf Road, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park then switch off properly.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, yes, but it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, make sure it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and look again — making sure the diesel cap remained closed throughout. Only then, start the vehicle.
Find during the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the diesel filler? That is where you stop. Skip stage five altogether.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Craven Walk?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting your motor. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the vehicle on. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Esso, Shell or another forecourt will usually lend a hand to push the vehicle away when you ask. Your own drive in Craven Walk is where it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your motor has already run. Craven Walk lies under 5 miles from the M11; on it, take the first exit. A short hop across Craven Walk is a smaller job than a run towards London, under 5 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we turn up around Craven Walk, what takes place?
The van reaches the car wherever it has come to rest — your own drive, beside Biala Synagogue, or by Springfield Community Primary School. Which fluid got in, the amount, and if it ran: we ask because those answers set both work and price. No one heads out until you've heard our quote by phone.
Your system is then flushed thoroughly, after your tank is emptied. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Then our technicians start it and check it runs properly before we go.
Unstarted vehicles mostly need a half-hour job from the moment we arrive. The equipment is fine on a busy forecourt, and quiet enough for a residential street late at night. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Craven Walk itself
Craven Walk is a suburban area in north London, situated near several major lakes and waterways. Craven Walk has a relatively low elevation of around 14 metres, and its lakeside setting provides a distinctive character. Craven Walk is located close to several nearby places, including South Tottenham, Seven Sisters, and Stamford Hill, and is predominantly composed of terraced housing.
AdBlue drains across Greater London, Craven Walk included
Being a residential suburb, Craven Walk shares its vans surrounding places — Seven Sisters, Stamford Hill — right through N postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Quickest of all: give a N16 6 postcode to the van.
The vehicle does not need to shift. Draining happens on the spot, be it a driveway, a road near Georgian Christian Orthodox Church, or a lay-by on the way to Saw Mill Way Community Garden. Tricky to pin down, like the back of New Synagogue? By a border? Checking is better than assuming, and so ring.
Craven Walk motorists: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it stands, wherever in Greater London: keep the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103.