How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Tulse Hill
Stop reading a minute when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then call 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, carried out right where your vehicle sits around Tulse Hill, is normally what it takes when caught before the motor runs. Here in advance? In that case the rest explains why it happens and what to stop it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Diesel goes to your engine — yet plenty of newer diesels seen round Tulse Hill and Brockwell Park carry another liquid as well. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of motors have a single flap for the two, while others move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, the diesel side gets filled constantly. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less commonly, usually from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur around Tulse Hill?
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Maley Avenue, perhaps at Railway Tavern on the way home that evening.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your 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 just as readily, and after the tip begins, no part halts it. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Tulse Hill or out in West Dulwich.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt around Tulse Hill or a driveway out in Herne Hill. Seconds, that's all.
- Check the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue ones are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually are not.
- On many motors, size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- Can't find it next to the diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or inside your boot — the owner's manual will say which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside the nearest station.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Greater London that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Elmcourt Road.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you've located the filler and read it.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then look once more — making sure the diesel cap remained shut throughout. After that, start the car.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop just there. Don't go on to step five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Tulse Hill?
Short list, then. First: the motor remains off. Do not switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it's the Texaco or the Esso, ask the staff to help push the car away from the petrol pump. On your own drive in Tulse Hill? So the vehicle remains put.
Already run? Stop when it's safe, then turn off. Tulse Hill lies under 10 miles from the M4; on it, use the next exit. A short hop across Tulse Hill is a smaller job than a run towards Westminster, under 5 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
Tulse Hill: what happens when our engineers get there
By Fenstanton Primary School, near Faith Revival Ministries International or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our engineers come to it. Those replies settle this work and our price, so our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it has run. You hear that price by phone, before anyone heads out.
After that: draining, then a thorough flush of the entire system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and none of that washes away unaided. Hence it counts more. Once the fuel filter is flushed — or replaced, if required — clean diesel goes in, and then the car is tested. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running properly.
Unrun cars mostly mean a half-hour visit after arrival. The kit is fine on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Tulse Hill, briefly
Tulse Hill is a suburban area in south London, situated approximately 4.8 miles from the city centre. Tulse Hill sits at an elevation of around 52 metres, with nearby areas including West Dulwich, Knights Hill, and West Norwood. Tulse Hill is predominantly composed of flat dwellings, reflecting its urban character. Tulse Hill has a population of around 13274 residents, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains in Tulse Hill and across Greater London
As a residential suburb, Tulse Hill shares its vans nearby areas — Knights Hill, West Norwood — all the way across SE postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Fastest of all: give a SE21 8 postcode to the van.
Your car remains where it is. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near Tulse Hill Methodist Church, a lay-by on the way to Rosendale Road Playing Fields, a drive. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Chatsworth Baptist Church.
In short, for Tulse Hill people
Pour no AdBlue till you've read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it wherever it is, anywhere across Greater London: switch it off then call 0333 366 0103.