AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Docklands: How It Happens and How to Stop It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Docklands. The remainder of this page explains why it takes place and how to ensure it does not — useful if you're reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads round Docklands and Canning Town carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust gas and cleans it.
Each tank has its own filler. Some motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place the two side by side under one flap. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. The slip lives in that gap.
Docklands: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
Carelessness rarely causes it. Instead is three things lining up together.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the car, and letting it run out means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Seagull Lane, or outside Fox @ Excel on the way home that evening.
Unfamiliar vehicles come next, as well. Hire cars, new motors and company cars put their fillers differently, and the hand reaches for the cap used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after started, carries on. Trinity Buoy Wharf or the heart of Docklands: it takes the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Whether a Docklands forecourt or a drive over in Cripps Yard, spend a couple of seconds on these before anything goes in.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually don't.
- On plenty of motors, the size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of cars say there which fuel goes where.
- Can't see it beside the diesel inlet? In that case check below the bonnet or inside the boot — the handbook will say which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Custom House.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
Wherever across Greater London the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Tidal Basin Road, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park and switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, but it does the trick.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, close the cap and check a second time that the diesel cap never opened off.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop just there. Don't go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Docklands?
Don't start your engine: that is how the short order of things begins. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment your ignition is switched on — and so leave it off. Diluting it with extra diesel won't work, since AdBlue settles to the bottom instead of mixing — and that is where your fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Shell, BP or any other — the attendants will usually help roll the car away, when you ask. Your own drive in Docklands is where it should stay.
Already started? Pull over when it's sensible, then switch off. On the M11, under 10 miles from Docklands, that means the next junction. A short hop across Docklands is a smaller job than a run towards London, under 5 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
Docklands: what occurs when we get there
Wherever the car has stopped, whether by Hallsville Primary School, near Nature in Mind or on your own drive, our van travels to it. Those replies settle this work and our price, so our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it's run. You hear that quote by phone, before anybody heads out.
Draining the tank comes next, then a full flush of your system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. After your filter has been cleaned — or renewed, where required — clean diesel goes in, and finally your car is tested. The motor is started next and tested to be sure it runs smoothly, all before our engineers go.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after our engineers get there, as long as the engine has not run — and the pumps we use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet at night beside a house. Nothing upfront; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Docklands itself
Docklands is a suburban area located on the riverside in Greater London, with an elevation of around 4 metres above sea level. Docklands sits approximately 6.2 miles from central London and is close to nearby places such as Trinity Buoy Wharf and Hallsville Quarter. Docklands is predominantly composed of flat housing, accommodating a population of around 12,150 residents. Docklands is situated near Leamouth and the River Thames, providing a unique riverside setting.
AdBlue drains around Docklands, and Greater London beyond
Being a residential suburb, Docklands shares its vans nearby places — Hallsville Quarter, Leamouth — right across E postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Quickest of all: quote a E16 1 postcode to our van.
No need to move the vehicle. The drain takes place on the spot, whether a driveway, a road by Bird Boy (without a tail), or a layby towards Royal Victoria Dock Floating Garden. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of City Hall, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Docklands people: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it waits, anywhere in Greater London.