AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Petts Wood: How It Happens and How to Prevent It
Stop reading for a moment when the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Around Petts Wood, catching it before your motor turns normally leaves draining and a full flush where it stands. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Plenty of newer diesels around Poverest, as well as Petts Wood, carry on two liquids; your engine takes only the diesel. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up constantly. Far less frequently, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. It's in the gap that the error happens.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs around Petts Wood
Carelessness seldom explains it. What does is three things coming up together.
Hurry comes from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off Crest View Drive, or on the way home in the car park outside The Sovereign of the Seas.
The old car's cap is where the hand goes — but a rental car, a new motor or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is the second thing: a strange car.
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 decide it, in the middle of Petts Wood or out in Southborough.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt around Petts Wood or a driveway over in Bickley. Seconds, that's all.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- On many vehicles, size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many vehicles carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Can't find it next to your diesel inlet? Then check below the bonnet or inside your boot — the owner's manual says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at the nearest station? Ask the person who drove the car last before leaving, not once the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
The day the light comes on, anywhere around Greater London, follow this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Queensway.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, but it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. When both share a flap, confirm it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Find at the second or third step that the bottle went in the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Do not go on to step five.
Petts Wood: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the engine. Keep your ignition off as well, because on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself runs the pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
Ask the attendants to help push your car away from the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Shell, the BP or anywhere else. Your own drive in Petts Wood is the place it should stay.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. The next junction means where to leave when you are on the M25, under 5 miles from Petts Wood. A short hop across Petts Wood is a smaller job than a run towards London, under 15 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
What happens when our engineers turn up in Petts Wood
Our van comes to the vehicle wherever it stopped — your own driveway, beside Petts Wood Library, or outside St James' Roman Catholic Primary School. Both the work and the price depend on three answers — which fluid, what quantity, and whether it has run — so our engineers ask. The price comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
Draining the tank comes next, then a thorough flush of your 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 does not wash out on its own. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Then our technicians fire it up and confirm it runs smoothly before we leave.
If your engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork your insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Petts Wood, for a moment
Petts Wood is a suburban area in south-east London, situated near the River Shuttle at an elevation of around 85 metres. Petts Wood lies close to the neighbouring areas of Southborough, Broom Hill, and Crofton, and is approximately 11 miles from central London. Petts Wood is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock and a population of around 5638 residents. Petts Wood forms part of the wider London urban area, with easy access to the city centre.
AdBlue drains across Greater London, Petts Wood included
As a residential suburb, Petts Wood has the same vans as nearby places — Broom Hill, Crofton — right across BR postcodes and the wider area beyond. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting BR5 1.
The vehicle remains put. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street close to Petts Wood Memorial Hall, a lay-by on the way to Towncourt Wood, a driveway. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Petts Wood Snooker Club.
Petts Wood drivers: the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Leave it off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, throughout Greater London.