AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Eastcote: How It Happens and How to Prevent It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. Usually, if your motor has not run, it's drained and thoroughly purged where the car is around Eastcote. Not happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page explains the reasons it occurs and the how to prevent it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads round Eastcote and Ruislip carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, where a spray treats the gas.
Each tank comes with a filler of its own. Plenty of vehicles share a single flap for both, while others move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally goes in from a bottle, tipped by a driver who has to stop and think which filler to use. It's in that gap that the slip lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Eastcote: how it happens
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from your car, and running dry leads to limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off The Sigers, or outside The Ascott on the way home that evening.
New-to-you vehicles are second, too. Hire cars, new motors and company cars place their fillers differently, and the hand goes for the cap it used on the old one.
No part stops the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Eastcote or out in Eastcote Village.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Eastcote forecourt or a drive over in Northwood Hills, take a few seconds on these before anything goes in.
- Position misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside your fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on many cars. Look for it.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler is if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at South Ruislip? Check with whoever drove it last before you set off, not once the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Greater London that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Field End Road.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It works.
- The diesel cap stays on. When both sit under a flap, confirm it is shut before the bottle comes up.
- Stop once the tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour gently through its built-in spout.
- Before starting the vehicle, shut the cap and look again that the diesel cap was never came off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Never go on to step five.
Eastcote: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Don't start the motor: that is how the short order of things begins. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels as soon as the ignition goes on — so leave it off. Thinning it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of blending — and that's where the fuel is drawn from.
The staff at the nearest petrol station, Shell or any forecourt will usually help to push the car clear when asked. Your own drive in Eastcote is where it should stay.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Leave the M40 — under 5 miles out of Eastcote — at the next junction. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Eastcote makes a smaller job than heading under 15 miles towards St Albans — so tell us about how far it went.
What takes place when our technicians arrive around Eastcote
Our van comes to your car wherever it has come to rest — your own drive, near Eastcote Library, or outside Coteford Infant School. The replies determine the work and our price, so our engineers ask what got in, about how much, and if it has run. The price comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Then your tank is cleared and your system cleaned thoroughly. 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. Once the filter has been cleaned — or replaced, where needed — clean diesel is added, and then the vehicle gets tested. Then we fire it up and check it runs properly before leaving.
If the engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Eastcote itself
Eastcote is a suburban area in northwest London, situated near the River Pinn and close to the Grand Union Canal. Eastcote sits at an elevation of around 57 metres, with Eastcote Village and Ruislip Manor nearby. Eastcote is characterized by its semi-detached housing and forms part of the wider suburban landscape around London. Eastcote is also near Pinner, another suburban area in the region.
Eastcote and Greater London: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout HA postcodes, the vans covering Eastcote — a residential suburb — work the surrounding places too, Pinner and Ruislip Manor included. Give a postcode beginning HA5 2, and our van arrives quickest.
There's no need to move the car. Draining happens on the spot, whether a drive, a road near St Lawrence, or a layby on the way to Enigma Square. Awkward to pin down, like the back of St Thomas More? Close to a county line? Asking beats assuming, so ring.
For Eastcote motorists, the short version
Pour nothing till you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere across Greater London, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — and so leave the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103.