Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Knights Hill: Why It Occurs
Stop reading for a moment when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Knights Hill. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Not one fluid but two: that's what plenty of newer diesels around Knights Hill and West Dulwich carry, with diesel feeding your motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust gas and cleans it.
There is a filler on each tank. Many of cars share a single flap for the two, whereas some move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, tipped by a driver who has to stop and think which cap it needs. It is in the gap that the error happens.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Knights Hill: how it occurs
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Pymers Mead before work, or in the car park outside Bullfinch Brewery on the way home.
Then, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old motor — because a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
A spout-topped bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, once started, carries on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Knights Hill or out in Dulwich Village.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Be it a Knights Hill forecourt or a driveway out in Brockwell Park, spend a few seconds over these before any goes in.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — many vehicles show what goes in each filler just there.
- Cannot see it next to the diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or inside the boot — the handbook will say which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside West Dulwich, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
The day the light goes on, wherever across Greater London, follow this routine.
- Switch off once parked — flat ground, engine stopped, and never rushed by Croxted Road on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It seems silly. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the car on.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Find at the second or third step that AdBlue went in the diesel filler? That is where you stop. Never go on to step five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Knights Hill?
Do not start your engine: that is how the short order of things begins. Keep your ignition off too, because on plenty of diesels it alone starts your pump. Filling up with diesel will not dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of your tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Texaco, Esso or any other — the staff will normally help push your car clear, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around Knights Hill.
Where the motor has run by now, stop safely and turn it off. The next exit is where to leave if you are on the M4, under 10 miles from Knights Hill. A short hop across Knights Hill is a smaller job than a run towards Westminster, under 5 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we arrive in Knights Hill, what takes place?
Our engineers come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Rosendale Primary School, close to Dulwich Sports Ground or on your own drive. The replies decide the work and the price, so our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and if it's run. No one heads out before you've had the price over the phone.
Next: a drain, then a thorough flush of the entire system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and none of it washes out unaided. Hence it counts more. After the fuel filter has been flushed — or replaced, where needed — fresh diesel is added, and finally your vehicle gets tested. Before leaving, our technicians fire it up and check that it is running correctly.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once we get there, as long as the motor hasn't run — and the pumps we use are fine on a live forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Knights Hill and where it is
Knights Hill is a locality in the southern part of Greater London, situated approximately 4.5 miles from central London. Knights Hill is characterised by its terraced housing and relatively low elevation of 34 metres. Knights Hill is close to nearby places such as Dulwich Village, Herne Hill, and Tulse Hill, and is within a short distance of Westminster. Knights Hill has a population of around 2296 residents.
AdBlue drains around Knights Hill, and Greater London beyond
Over SE postcodes, our vans covering Knights Hill — a small village — work the surrounding locations too, Tulse Hill and Herne Hill among them. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting SE21 8.
Your car doesn't need to move. The drain happens right there, be it a drive, a road near Dulwich Sports Club, or a lay-by on the way to Rosendale Road Playing Fields. Tricky to explain, like the back of All Saints? Close to a county line? Asking is better than assuming, and so phone.
In short, for Knights Hill people
Pour no AdBlue until you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere across Greater London.