Foxbury: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and the ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. In Foxbury, catching it before your engine runs usually means a drain and a full flush where it stands. Nothing happened yet? Below, the page explains the why it occurs and the how to prevent it altogether.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Plenty of current diesels on the roads around Foxbury and Albany Park carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to fresh them, from a separate tank.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Some motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place the two side by side behind one flap. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. The AdBlue side is filled far less frequently, normally from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in that gap that the error happens.
Foxbury: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things coming up together.
Hurry comes from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a drive off Kemnal Road, or on the way home in the car park at Gordon Arms.
New-to-you motors are next, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company cars place their fillers differently, and the hand reaches for the cap used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in as readily, and once the tip begins, no part stops it. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Foxbury or out in Chislehurst West.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt around Foxbury or a drive over in New Eltham. Seconds, no more.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally are not.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of vehicles mark which goes in each inlet right there.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in your 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 — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside New Eltham.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Greater London that is.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time in hand — not rushing on the side of Belmont Lane.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, yes, yet it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Skip stage five entirely.
Foxbury: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Don't start your engine: that is where the short order of things begins. Don't switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel won't weaken it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of the tank, right where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help push the vehicle clear of the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the BP, the Harvest Energy or anywhere else. Your own drive around Foxbury is the place it should stay.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Foxbury sits under 10 miles from the M20; there, take the first exit. Mileage matters — a short hop across Foxbury is a smaller job than heading under 10 miles towards London — so say roughly how far it went.
Our arrival in Foxbury, and what occurs next
Anywhere the vehicle came to rest, whether by Edgebury Primary School, near Red 1 Airsoft Chislehurst or on your own drive, our van travels to it. We ask what went in, about how much, and if it has run, since those replies determine the work and the price. That price is given over the phone, before any van leaves.
Your system is then purged thoroughly, after that tank is cleared. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. A test comes at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is flushed or replaced as needed. After that our technicians start the car and make sure it runs properly before we go.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after our technicians arrive, provided the engine has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a live forecourt and quiet at night beside a house. The insurer will ask for an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once the job is done. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Foxbury
Foxbury is a locality in Greater London, situated on the riverside with an elevation of 71 metres, and is located approximately 10.5 miles from central London. Foxbury is characterized by its semi-detached housing and is near neighbouring areas such as Chislehurst West, Chislehurst, and Longlands. Foxbury has a population of around 1484 residents and is part of the wider London urban area.
AdBlue drains about Foxbury, and Greater London beyond
Chislehurst and Longlands are among the places near Foxbury, a small village, that the same vans cover, throughout BR postcodes. Give a postcode beginning BR7 6, and our van gets there quickest.
Shifting the vehicle isn't needed. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street close to Church of the Annunciation, a lay-by on the way to Belmont Lane Open Space, a driveway. Assuming doesn't help at the back of St Patrick's, on a border, or somewhere hard to describe; ring and ask.
The short version for Foxbury motorists
Before you pour, read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep it off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, throughout Greater London.