Honor Oak Park: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. In Honor Oak Park, finding it before your motor runs normally means a drain and a full flush on the spot. The remainder of this page covers why it occurs and how to ensure it does not — useful if you are reading ahead of time.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Many modern diesels on the roads about Honor Oak Park and Ladywell carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream and cleans it.
Every tank has one filler of its own. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on many vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Filling your diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. Much less regularly, the AdBlue side gets topped up — normally from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. It is in the gap that the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs in Honor Oak Park
Carelessness rarely causes it. Instead is three things lining up at once.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the vehicle, and letting it run out leads to limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Maclean Road, or outside The Brockley Jack on the way home after work.
Next, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old motor — since a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip after it has started. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Honor Oak Park or out in Crofton Park.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Whether a Honor Oak Park forecourt or a drive over in Nunhead, take a few seconds over these before anything is poured in.
- Read the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- On many cars, the size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — many motors show which belongs in each inlet right there.
- The handbook says which it is when your filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park outside the nearest station? Ask the person who drove it last before leaving, rather than when the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching 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 the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Stondon Park.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you have found your filler and read the cap.
- Both under one flap? So confirm the lid on the diesel side is still shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then look again — making sure your diesel filler remained closed the whole time. After that, start the car.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? So stop right there. Don't go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Honor Oak Park already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. The fuel pump runs on many diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — and so leave it off. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
On a forecourt — Esso, Sainsbury's or another — the attendants will usually help push the vehicle away, if you ask. Your own drive in Honor Oak Park is the place it should stay.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Come off the M11 — under 10 miles out of Honor Oak Park — at the next exit. Distance matters — a short hop across Honor Oak Park is a smaller job than driving under 5 miles towards London — so tell us about how far it went.
Honor Oak Park: what happens when our engineers turn up
The van reaches your car wherever it stopped — your own driveway, beside St Hilda's Church, or outside Stillness Junior School. Those answers settle this work and our price, so our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it has run. That quote is given over the phone, before any van leaves.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. 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 doesn't wash out on its own. Filter flushed or, where it must be, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a test of your vehicle. Before leaving, we fire it up and check that it is running smoothly.
Unstarted vehicles usually mean a half-hour job after the moment we arrive. The equipment is fine on a live filling station, and quiet enough for a residential street late at night. Your insurer usually wants an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both once the job is done. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Honor Oak Park, for a moment
Honor Oak Park is a suburban area in south London, situated approximately 5.4 miles from central London. Honor Oak Park has a relatively low elevation of 33 metres and is characterised by its predominantly terraced housing stock. Honor Oak Park is located near other suburban areas such as Crofton Park and Brockley, and is also close to the nearby locality of Honor Oak.
Honor Oak Park and Greater London: AdBlue drains across the area
Honor Oak Park is a residential suburb, and our vans that cover it also work the places near it, Brockley and Honor Oak among them, across the SE postcode area. Quickest of all: give a SE23 1 postcode for our van.
Shifting your car is not necessary. Anywhere it stands — near St Hilda's Church Hall, in a layby en route to Gorne Wood, on a drive — that's where it gets drained. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of King's College London Honor Oak Park Sports Ground.
Honor Oak Park drivers: the short version
Always, the cap; then, the pour. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Greater London, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless — and so leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103.