Isleworth: 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 your engine and your ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Isleworth. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel goes to your engine — but many newer diesels driven around Isleworth and St Margarets hold a second liquid as well. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the gas to fresh it, from its own tank.
There's a filler on every tank. Many of cars have a single flap for the two, while others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled constantly. The AdBlue side is filled far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in the gap that the error happens.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs in Isleworth
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Twickenham Road before work, or in the car park at The Castle on the way home.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — but a hire car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That is the second thing: a strange vehicle.
A spouted bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, after started, carries on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Isleworth or out in Woodlands.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all these take — so check them before you pour anything, on a drive in Osterley or a forecourt in Isleworth.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally isn't. Read it instead of going by position.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- Cannot find it beside your diesel inlet? In that case look beneath the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook will say 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 at the nearest station.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
When the light comes on, anywhere around Greater London, follow this routine.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time to spare — not rushing on the side of South Street.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, yes, yet it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Leave out step five entirely.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Isleworth?
The short order of things, starting with no starting the motor. Keep the ignition off as well, since on many diesels switching it on by itself runs your fuel pump. Thinning it with more diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the base rather than blending — and that is where your fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — Esso, Tesco or another — the attendants will usually help roll your car clear, if you ask. Your own drive around Isleworth is where it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. Come off the M4 — under 3 miles out of Isleworth — at the first exit. A short hop across Isleworth is a smaller job than a run towards Westminster, under 10 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
Isleworth: what takes place when our engineers arrive
Our van reaches your car wherever it has come to rest — your own drive, near Isleworth War Memorial, or by St Mary's Catholic Primary School, Isleworth. Which fluid was put in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our technicians ask because those replies decide both work and quote. The quote is given on the call, before any van leaves.
After that: draining, then a thorough flush of the entire system. 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 filter cleaned or, if it must be, swapped; clean diesel in; then a check of the car. The motor is started next and checked to confirm it runs smoothly, all before we head off.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once we get there, provided the motor has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. It's worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Isleworth and where it is
Isleworth is a locality in the London Borough of Hounslow, situated on the River Thames in southwest London. Isleworth sits at a low elevation of around 12 metres, with the river forming a significant part of its boundary. Isleworth is characterized by its predominantly flat housing stock, with many residents enjoying views of the Thames. Isleworth is close to nearby places such as Woodlands, Spring Grove, and Brentford End.
Isleworth and Greater London: AdBlue drains across the area
As a small village, Isleworth has the same vans as nearby places — Spring Grove, Brentford End — right through TW postcodes and the surrounding area around them. A postcode starting TW7 6 gets our van to you fastest.
The car doesn't need to shift. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Silverhall Park, a side street near St.Bridget's Parish Hall: our technicians drain the vehicle where it is. Awkward to pin down, like the back of Our Lady of Sorrows and St.Bridget of Sweden? Close to a county line? Asking is better than guessing, and so ring.
For Isleworth motorists, the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Greater London, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway — and so leave the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103.