How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Hale End
Leave your motor and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain and a thorough flush, carried out right where your vehicle sits around Hale End, is usually what it takes when caught before the motor runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Many current diesels on the roads around Hale End and Walthamstow carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to clean it, from its own tank.
There's a filler for each tank. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Topping up your diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less regularly, normally from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. The error lives in that gap.
Hale End: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Hale End Road before work, or in the car park outside The Royal Oak on the way home.
New-to-you vehicles come next, too. Hire cars, new motors and company motors place their fillers in new places, and the hand reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
Lastly, the bottle goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as easily, and after the pour begins, nothing stops it. Highams Park or the middle of Hale End: it takes the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a drive in Friday Hill or a forecourt around Hale End.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue ones are often blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- On many vehicles, the size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler is if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Highams Park.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
Wherever across Greater London the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Turn off after you park — level ground, engine stopped, and not rushed by Beech Hall Crescent at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Stop once your tank fills or the bottle is empty; before that, pour slowly using its built-in spout.
- Shut the cap, then check once more — making sure your diesel cap stayed closed the whole time. Only then, start the car.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop just there. Step five stays off limits.
Hale End: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the motor. Leave your ignition off as well, because on plenty of diesels it by itself runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the attendants to help roll the vehicle away from the pump if you're on a forecourt — the Shell, the Gulf or anywhere else. If you're on your own driveway in Hale End, leave it where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. On the M11, under 3 miles from Hale End, that means the next junction. Distance counts — a quick hop across Hale End is a smaller job than heading under 10 miles towards London — so tell us about how far it went.
What happens when our engineers turn up in Hale End
Anywhere the vehicle has stopped, be it outside Handsworth Primary School, beside Greenwich Meridian or at home, the van travels to it. We ask what was put in, about how much, and if it's run, because the answers decide this work and our price. That quote comes over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Draining your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and none of that washes out by itself. Hence it matters more. Once the filter has been flushed — or renewed, where required — fresh diesel goes in, and finally your vehicle gets tested. Then our engineers fire it up and make sure it runs correctly before leaving.
If the motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Nothing upfront; you settle up on the day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Hale End and where it is
Hale End is a suburban area in northeast London, situated near several lakes and the River Lea. Hale End has a mix of terraced housing and other residential buildings, and is located close to Highams Park and Walthamstow Forest. Hale End is also near Chingford Hatch, and is about 7.5 miles from central London. Hale End sits at a relatively low elevation of around 25 metres above sea level.
AdBlue drains in Hale End and across Greater London
Walthamstow Forest and Chingford Hatch are among the towns near Hale End, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, throughout IG postcodes. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting IG8 9.
The vehicle remains where it is. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Rolls Sports Ground, a side street close to Winchester Road Methodist Church: our technicians drain the car where it stands. Tricky to explain, like the back of Hale End Library? Close to a county line? Checking beats guessing, so ring.
Hale End drivers: the short version
Tip no AdBlue till you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere across Greater London, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway — and so leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103.