How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Wandle Park
Keep the engine and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Usually, if your engine hasn't run, it's drained and fully rinsed where your car is in Wandle Park. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
No single fluid but two: that's what many modern diesels near Wandle Park and Beddington run, with diesel for 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.
Every tank has one filler of its own. Other vehicles put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others have both together under one flap. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. Seldom filled, AdBlue usually goes in from a bottle, tipped by a driver who must stop and think which cap it needs. That gap is where the slip lives.
Wandle Park: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the car, and running out means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Siddons Road, or at The Wandle Arms on the way home after work.
New-to-you vehicles are second, too. Rentals, new vehicles and company motors put their fillers differently, and habit goes for the cap it used on the old one.
Nothing stops the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it takes place in Waddon or the middle of Wandle Park, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Whether a Wandle Park forecourt or a drive out in Bandonhill, spend a few seconds over these before anything is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually isn't. Read it rather than going by position.
- Plenty of motors give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of cars show what belongs in which inlet just there.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Waddon, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
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.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Kemble Road.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — after you have found your filler and read it.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two share a flap, make sure it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and look once more — confirm the diesel filler stayed shut throughout. Only then, start the car.
Spot at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? So stop just there. Never carry on to step five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Wandle Park already?
The short order of things, beginning with not starting the motor. Leave your ignition off as well, because on many diesels switching it on alone runs the pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
On a forecourt — Sainsbury's, Esso or another — the staff will normally help push the vehicle clear, if you ask. On your own drive in Wandle Park? Then your car remains where it is.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. The next exit is where to come off when you are on the M23, under 10 miles from Wandle Park. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Westminster, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Wandle Park.
Our arrival around Wandle Park, and what occurs next
Anywhere the vehicle has stopped, be it outside The Minster Nursery and Infants Church of England Academy, near Croywall or at home, our van comes to it. Both the work and the price depend on three answers — which fluid, which quantity, and if it's run — so our engineers ask. On the phone call itself, you are told our price — before anything else.
Then that tank is emptied and the fuel system flushed thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither clears away by itself. That is why it counts more. A test is at the end: before that, fresh diesel is added, and the fuel filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. Before we go, we fire it up and confirm that it is running smoothly.
Unstarted cars mostly mean a half-hour job from the moment we arrive. The equipment is safe on a live filling station, and quiet 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. Wrong-fuel cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to check yours.
About Wandle Park itself
Wandle Park is a locality in south London, situated on the banks of the River Wandle at an elevation of around 45 metres. Wandle Park lies within the Greater London area, approximately 9.3 miles from central London and close to nearby places such as Waddon and Croydon. Wandle Park is predominantly composed of flat dwellings, providing residential accommodation for its population of around 6019 people.
AdBlue drains about Wandle Park, and Greater London beyond
As a small village, Wandle Park shares its vans surrounding areas — Croydon, Broad Green — right across CR postcodes and the wider area beyond. Give a postcode beginning CR0 4, and our van arrives quickest.
The car stays put. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to The Salvation Army Croydon Citadel, a lay-by on the way to the green space at the edge of the village, a driveway. Assuming won't help at the back of TK Maxx, close to a boundary, or anywhere hard to describe; ring and check.
Wandle Park motorists: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around Greater London, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — so leave it off then call 0333 366 0103.