Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Roundshaw: Why It Occurs
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and your ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Usually, if the engine has not turned, it is drained and fully flushed where your vehicle is in Roundshaw. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Diesel goes to the engine — but many newer diesels driven around Roundshaw and Woodcote Green carry a second fluid too. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to clean them, from a separate tank.
There's a filler for every tank. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Topping up the diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally goes in out of a bottle, tipped by a driver who must stop and think what filler to use. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Roundshaw: how it occurs
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things lining up at once.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the vehicle, and running out means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Vanguard Way, or outside The Whispering Moon on the way home that evening.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in as easily, and once the tip starts, no part stops it. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Roundshaw or out in South Beddington.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A few seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you pour anything, on a drive in Wallington or a forecourt in Roundshaw.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally are not.
- Plenty of motors give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — many motors mark what belongs in which inlet right there.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by the diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Wallington.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across 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 Meteor Way.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you have found the filler and read the cap.
- The two under a single flap? Then make sure the lid on your diesel filler is still shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Discover at the second or third step that AdBlue went in the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Stage five is out.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Roundshaw?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with not starting your engine. The fuel pump starts on many diesels as soon as the ignition goes on — so keep it off. Thinning it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom rather than mixing — and that is where the fuel is pulled from.
On a forecourt — Texaco, Shell or any other — the attendants will usually help push your car away, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive in Roundshaw.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. Leave the M23 — under 5 miles out of Roundshaw — at the next exit. Distance counts — a short hop across Roundshaw makes a smaller job than driving under 15 miles to Westminster — so say roughly how far it went.
When our engineers arrive in Roundshaw, what takes place?
Anywhere the vehicle came to rest, be it outside Wallington Primary Academy, beside The Phoenix Centre or at home, our van travels to it. Those answers decide this work and the price, and so we ask what got in, about how much, and if it has run. Nobody heads out before you've had our price by phone.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the entire 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 does not wash out on its own. Once the filter is cleaned — or replaced, if required — fresh diesel is added, and then the car is tested. Then we fire it up and confirm it runs smoothly before we go.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once our engineers arrive, provided the motor has not run — and the pumps we use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet at night beside a house. Your insurer will ask for an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once this job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. It's worth looking at your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Roundshaw itself
Roundshaw is a suburban area in south London, situated approximately 10.7 miles from central London and 10.2 miles from Westminster. Roundshaw sits at an elevation of around 75 metres, with its predominant housing stock consisting of flats. Roundshaw is located near other suburban areas such as South Beddington, Russell Hill, and Bandonhill, and has a population of around 8035 residents.
AdBlue drains in Roundshaw and across Greater London
As a residential suburb, Roundshaw shares its vans nearby areas — Russell Hill, Bandonhill — right through SM postcodes and the wider area around them. A postcode starting SM6 9 gets our van to you fastest.
The vehicle stays put. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to The Library @ The Phoenix Centre, a lay-by on the way to Roundshaw Park, a driveway. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of St. Paul's.
For Roundshaw people, the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere across Greater London, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — so leave the car off then call 0333 366 0103.