How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Holders Hill
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. Usually, if the engine has not turned, it is emptied and thoroughly purged where your car is in Holders Hill. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Diesel feeds the engine — yet plenty of modern diesels seen around Holders Hill and The Burroughs carry a second fluid too. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, where spraying cleans the gas.
There is a filler on each tank. Plenty of vehicles have a single flap for both, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in on each forecourt visit, week in, week out. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less commonly. That gap is where the slip lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place around Holders Hill?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Haste follows from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off Woodtree Close, or heading home in the car park at The Greyhound.
New-to-you motors come next, as well. Rentals, new cars and company cars put their fillers differently, and the hand goes for the cap it used on the old one.
A spouted bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once begun, keeps on. It's a few seconds, be it in Finchley or bang in the heart of Holders Hill.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A few seconds is all these take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Mill Hill or a forecourt around Holders Hill.
- Check the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue ones are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of vehicles. Look for it.
- The handbook says where it is if the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask when you pick up a rental or company car — from Mill Hill Broadway's car park, perhaps — not when the light appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
The day the light goes on, wherever in Greater London, use this routine.
- Pull in on level, motor off, with time to spare — not rushing on the side of Ashley Close.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you've located your filler and read it.
- Both behind one flap? So confirm the lid on the diesel side stays shut before lifting the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to stage five.
Holders Hill: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your engine. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the vehicle on. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the BP or the Esso, ask the attendants to help push the vehicle away from the pump. On your own drive in Holders Hill? Then the vehicle stays put.
Where the motor has been run already, stop safely then switch the car off. The next exit means where to come off when you are on the M1, under a mile from Holders Hill. Distance counts — a short hop across Holders Hill is a smaller job than driving under 10 miles towards Westminster — so say roughly how far it went.
When our technicians turn up in Holders Hill, what occurs?
Outside Dollis Primary School, close to StoneX Stadium or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Which fluid was put in, the quantity, and if it ran: we ask because those answers set the work and quote. The quote is given on the call, before any van leaves.
Then the tank is emptied and your system cleaned 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. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Your engine is started next and tested to make sure it runs correctly, all before we head off.
If the engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. The insurer usually wants the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Holders Hill, briefly
Holders Hill is a locality in northwest Greater London, situated near the riverside and approximately 7.5 miles from central London. Holders Hill has an elevation of around 63 metres and is close to nearby places such as Finchley, Church End, and Grahame Park. Holders Hill is predominantly composed of flat housing, which is typical of many London localities. Holders Hill is also relatively close to Westminster, being around 7.9 miles away from the city.
Holders Hill and Greater London: AdBlue drains across the area
As a small village, Holders Hill shares its vans surrounding places — Church End, Grahame Park — right through NW postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting NW4 1.
The car doesn't need to shift. Wherever it sits — near Barnet Copthall Leisure Centre, on a lay-by en route to Hendon Golf Course, at home — that's where it is emptied. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Canada Villa Youth Centre, ring and ask rather than assuming.
The short version for Holders Hill motorists
Before you tip, read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it wherever it stands, wherever across Greater London: switch the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103.