Stanwell: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Keep the engine and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before your engine runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Stanwell. Reading in advance? Then the rest covers why it happens and how to prevent it ever happening.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Diesel feeds the engine — yet many modern diesels seen around Stanwell and East Bedfont hold another fluid too. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
Each tank has a filler of its own. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is topped up at the pump all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally goes in from a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think which filler it needs. That gap is where the slip lives.
Stanwell: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your 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 driveway off Church Approach before work, or in the car park outside The Five Bells on the way home.
The old car's cap is where your hand goes — but a rental car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That's the second thing: an unfamiliar motor.
Third, the spout fits: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in just as readily, and after the pour starts, no part halts it. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Stanwell or out in West Bedfont.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Ashford or a forecourt around Stanwell, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- Many vehicles give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Check inside the fuel flap: plenty of motors have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Cannot see it next to your diesel inlet? Then check beneath the bonnet or in the boot — the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check when you pick up a rental or company car — from Heathrow Terminal 5 Rail's car park, say — rather than when the warning appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
On the day the light appears — wherever you are around Surrey — a simple routine to use.
- Stop somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Oaks Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It seems daft. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave it on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Step five stays out.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Stanwell already?
Don't start the motor: that is how the short order of things begins. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the car on. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help push the vehicle away from the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Esso, the another forecourt nearby or anywhere else. If you are on your own driveway around Stanwell, leave the vehicle where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. The next exit is the place to come off if you are on the Terminal 5 Spur, under 3 miles from Stanwell. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Westminster, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Stanwell.
When our technicians get there around Stanwell, what happens?
Wherever your car has stopped, whether outside Town Farm Primary School & Nursery, near Saint Mary The Virgin or at home, our van comes to it. Both the work and our quote rest on three answers — what liquid, what amount, and if it's run — so we ask. On the phone call itself, you are told our quote — before anything else.
The system is then purged thoroughly, once the tank is drained. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that counts more here than with petrol. Once the filter has been flushed — or replaced, where needed — clean diesel is added, and then your car gets tested. Your engine is fired up next and checked to be sure it runs correctly, all before our engineers go.
Unstarted vehicles mostly mean a half-hour visit after the moment we arrive. The kit is fine on a live forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Stanwell
Stanwell is a village in Surrey, situated near the lakes and low-lying areas of the Colne Valley, with an elevation of around 24 metres. Stanwell lies close to the M25 motorway and is surrounded by nearby places such as West Bedfont, Stanwell Moor, and Longford. Stanwell has a population of approximately 4167 people and predominantly consists of flat-type housing. Stanwell is located about 15.5 miles from London, making it a commuter village with easy access to the city.
AdBlue drains across Surrey, Stanwell included
Stanwell is a village, and our vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Stanwell Moor and Longford among them, across the TW postcode area. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting TW19 7.
No need to move the car. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Stanwell Village Hall, a lay-by on the way to Long Lane Recreation Ground, a drive. Guessing doesn't help at the back of Stanwell Library, close to a boundary, or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and ask.
In short, for Stanwell motorists
Before you pour, read the cap. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it wherever it stands, wherever in Surrey: switch the car off then call 0333 366 0103.