Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Wandsworth Common
Leave the motor and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Usually, if the motor hasn't turned, it is drained and fully cleaned where the vehicle sits around Wandsworth Common. Not happened yet? Further down, the page explains the why it occurs and the ways to prevent it for good.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads about Wandsworth Common and Upper Tooting carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, where a spray treats the gas.
Each tank has its own filler. Other cars put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have both together under one flap. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less commonly, usually from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. The error lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Wandsworth Common: how it occurs
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
Hurry comes from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a drive off Broomwood Road, or on the way home in the car park at The Bolingbroke.
Then, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old car — since a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
No part stops the tip after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's a few seconds, be it out in Clapham Junction or bang in the heart of Wandsworth Common.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Whether a Wandsworth Common forecourt or a driveway over in Earlsfield, spend a few seconds over these before anything is poured in.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally don't.
- Many vehicles fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — many cars show which goes in each inlet just there.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in your 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 — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at the nearest station.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Greater London that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Honeywell Road.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you've located your filler and read the cap.
- Both behind a single flap? Then confirm the cap on your diesel side is still shut before raising the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop right there. Skip stage five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Wandsworth Common?
Do not start the engine: that's where the short order of things begins. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of the tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it's the Sainsbury's or the BP, ask the attendants to help roll the vehicle clear of the pump. Your own drive around Wandsworth Common is the place it stays.
Where your engine has run by now, pull over somewhere safe then turn the vehicle off. Wandsworth Common lies under 10 miles from the M4; there, take the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Wandsworth Common is less work than a run of under 5 miles to Westminster, and so tell us.
Our arrival in Wandsworth Common, and what happens next
Our engineers come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Honeywell Infant School, near Saint Michael's or on your own driveway. What liquid went in, the quantity, and if it ran: we ask because the answers set both work and price. You hear that quote by phone, before anybody sets off.
After that: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. Filter flushed or, where needed, swapped; fresh diesel in; and then a test of your car. Before we leave, our technicians fire it up and confirm that it is running smoothly.
If the engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, have a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Wandsworth Common and where it is
Wandsworth Common is a suburban area in south London, situated near Clapham Junction and Clapham Common. Wandsworth Common is characterised by its terraced housing and relatively low elevation of 22 metres above sea level. Wandsworth Common is close to several major transport links, including Clapham Junction railway station, and is within walking distance of nearby Balham. Wandsworth Common has a population of approximately 13,793 residents.
AdBlue drains across Greater London, Wandsworth Common included
Clapham Common and Balham are among the towns near Wandsworth Common, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, over SW postcodes. Fastest of all: give a SW11 6 postcode to our van.
There's no need to shift your car. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Northcote Road Baptist Church, a lay-by on the way to the green space at the edge of the village, a driveway. Tricky to explain, like the back of William Wilberforce? Close to a border? Asking is better than assuming, and so phone.
Wandsworth Common drivers: the short version
Tip no AdBlue until you have read the cap. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it wherever it is, wherever in Greater London: switch the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.