Highams Park: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Pause reading a minute when the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then phone 0333 366 0103. Around Highams Park, catching it before your engine runs normally leaves a drain and a full flush on the spot. The remainder of this page explains why it occurs and how to make sure it does not — handy if you are reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to the motor — yet plenty of current diesels seen round Highams Park and Friday Hill carry another fluid too. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on a lot of vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. The slip lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs in Highams Park
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Larkshall Road before work, or in the car park at The Stag and Lantern on the way home.
New-to-you motors are second, too. Hire cars, new cars and company motors put their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
Nothing stops the tip once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It takes a few seconds, whether in Hale End or bang in the heart of Highams Park.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Be it a Highams Park forecourt or a drive over in Walthamstow, spend a couple of seconds over these before any is poured in.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally aren't.
- Plenty of motors give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- 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 is where the filler is if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask when you collect a hire car or company car — from the nearest station's car park, perhaps — not once the warning appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Anywhere across Greater London the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Wilton Place, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, yes, but it works.
- The two behind one flap? Then make sure the lid on the diesel side stays closed before lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and check a second time that your diesel cap never opened off.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Do not go on to step five.
Highams Park: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Don't start your engine: that is where the short order of things starts. Keep your ignition off as well, because on many diesels switching it on by itself starts your fuel pump. Filling up with diesel will not dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of that tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it is the Shell or the Gulf, ask the attendants to help roll the vehicle clear of the pump. Your own drive around Highams Park is the place it stays.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. On the M11, under 3 miles from Highams Park, that means the next junction. A short hop across Highams Park is a smaller job than a run towards London, under 10 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
Highams Park: what happens when our technicians arrive
Our technicians come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Handsworth Primary School, close to Greenwich Meridian or on your own driveway. What fluid was put in, the quantity, and if it ran: our technicians ask because the answers decide both work and quote. Nobody sets off until you have had the quote by phone.
Then the tank is drained and the fuel system flushed thoroughly. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. Filter cleaned or, if needed, swapped; fresh diesel in; and then a test of the vehicle. Then we fire it up and check it runs smoothly before we go.
If the motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Highams Park, for a moment
Highams Park is a suburban area in north-east London, situated near the edge of the capital and adjacent to several wooded areas, including Walthamstow Forest and the nearby lakes. Highams Park has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly characterised by terraced homes. Highams Park sits at a relatively low elevation of 29 metres, close to the River Lea and its associated water features. Highams Park is bordered by other local areas, including Hale End and Chingford Hatch.
AdBlue drains across Greater London, Highams Park included
As a residential suburb, Highams Park has the same vans as surrounding places — Chingford Hatch, Walthamstow Forest — all the way through E postcodes and the wider area beyond. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting E4 9.
The vehicle stays where it is. Draining takes place on the spot, be it a driveway, a street near Hale End Library, or a layby on the way to Rolls Sports Ground. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of All Saints Church of England Highams Park, ring and ask rather than assuming.
For Highams Park people, the short version
First, the cap; after that, the pour. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave the car off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it waits, anywhere around Greater London.