Upton Park: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, carried out right where your car sits around Upton Park, is usually what it needs if caught before your engine runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads around Upton Park and Plaistow carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. 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. Diesel goes in at each forecourt call-out, week in, week out. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less commonly. It is in that gap that the error happens.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Upton Park
Carelessness rarely causes it. What does is three things coming up together.
On a driveway off Wyndham Road before work, or in the car park outside The Queens heading home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car warns you, and once it's empty, limp mode follows.
Then your car is strange. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part halts the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it occurs in Plashet or the middle of Upton Park, it's the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Upton Park forecourt or a driveway over in Forest Gate, spend a few seconds over these before anything goes in.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually are not.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- Cannot find it beside the diesel filler? Then check below the bonnet or inside the boot — the owner's manual says which.
- Check with 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 Woodgrange Park.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
When the light goes on, anywhere around Greater London, use this routine.
- Pull in somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never rushing on the side of Plashet Grove.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" aloud while unscrewing it. It seems silly. It works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both share a flap, confirm it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and look again that the diesel cap never opened off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Upton Park?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the motor. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the car on. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it is the Shell or the Gulf, ask the attendants to help push the car away from the petrol pump. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway in Upton Park.
Where your motor has run already, pull over safely and turn the car off. Upton Park sits under 5 miles from the M11; on it, take the first exit. Mileage counts — a short hop across Upton Park makes a smaller job than driving under 10 miles to London — so say roughly how far it went.
When our engineers turn up around Upton Park, what occurs?
Wherever the car came to rest, whether by St Stephen's Primary School, beside Full Gospel Hall or on your own drive, the van travels to it. Those answers settle the work and our quote, so we ask what went in, about how much, and whether it's run. During the phone call itself, you are told the price — before anything else.
After that: draining, then a thorough flush of the entire system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. Filter cleaned or, if needed, swapped; fresh diesel in; and then a check of your car. Your engine is fired up next and checked to confirm it runs correctly, all before we leave.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour once our engineers get there, as long as the motor has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. Nothing in advance; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Upton Park
Upton Park is a suburban area in east London, situated approximately 7.5 miles from central London and 5.9 miles from the city centre. Upton Park is characterized by its predominantly terraced housing stock and lies close to nearby places such as Plashet, Upton, and East Ham. Upton Park has a relatively low elevation of around 10 metres above sea level, typical of the surrounding area. Upton Park is home to a diverse community with a population of approximately 31,574 residents.
Upton Park and Greater London: AdBlue drains across the area
Upton and East Ham are among the places near Upton Park, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, throughout E postcodes. Fastest of all: give a E6 1 postcode for our van.
No need to move the car. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Katherine Road Community Centre, a lay-by on the way to Priory Park, a drive. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of The Greek Orthodox Church of St. Lazarus and St. Andrew the Apostle, ring and ask instead of guessing.
In short, for Upton Park people
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Greater London.