Mill Hill: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Keep your engine and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before your engine runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Mill Hill. Here in advance? Then what follows explains how it comes about and what to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads around Mill Hill and Grahame Park carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler on each tank. Many of vehicles have a single flap for both, while some move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in on every forecourt call-out, week in, week out. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less frequently, normally from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs in Mill Hill
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the car, and letting it run out means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Milespit Hill, or at Adam & Eve on the way home that evening.
Then the vehicle is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part halts the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Mill Hill or out in Highwood Hill.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Whether a Mill Hill forecourt or a drive out in The Hale, take a few seconds over these before any goes in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- On many cars, the size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on many vehicles. Look for it.
- The handbook says where it is when your filler is not next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Mill Hill Broadway.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
The day the light goes on, anywhere around Greater London, follow this routine.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of High Street.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you've found your filler and read the cap.
- Both behind one flap? Then make sure the lid on the diesel side stays shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, and look again — confirm your diesel cap stayed shut the whole time. Only then, start the vehicle.
Spot at stage two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop right there. Don't carry on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Mill Hill?
The short order of things, starting with not starting the motor. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch it on. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
On a forecourt — Esso, BP or any other — the attendants will usually help push the vehicle away, when you ask. Your own drive in Mill Hill is the place it should stay.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. Mill Hill sits under a mile from the M1; on it, take the first junction. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Mill Hill is smaller work than a run of under 10 miles to Westminster, and so tell us.
What takes place when we get there in Mill Hill
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside St Vincent's Catholic Primary School, near Church of the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star or on your own driveway. Those replies decide this work and our quote, and so we ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. During the call itself, you are told our quote — before dispatch.
Then that tank is emptied and the system purged 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. A test comes at the end: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and the filter is flushed or changed if necessary. Before leaving, our engineers fire it up and make sure that it's running smoothly.
Unstarted cars mostly mean a half-hour job after arrival. The kit is safe on a live filling station, and quiet enough for a driveway late at night. The insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — so use the wait to check yours.
About Mill Hill and where it is
Mill Hill is a suburban area in northwest London, situated near the River Brent and close to the borders of Hertfordshire. Mill Hill sits at an elevation of around 124 metres, with nearby Highwood Hill and Holders Hill forming part of the local landscape. Mill Hill is characterized by its predominantly flat housing stock, with many residents commuting to central London, which is approximately 8.7 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Greater London, Mill Hill included
Mill Hill is a residential suburb, and our teams that cover it also work the places near it, Denham and Holders Hill among them, across the NW postcode area. Fastest of all: quote a NW7 1 postcode for our van.
Your car stays put. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Rosebank Quaker Meeting House, a lay-by on the way to Driver's Hill Park, a drive. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of St Paul's, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Mill Hill drivers: the short version
Always, the cap; then, the pour. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere in Greater London, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway — and so leave the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103.