Westcombe 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 the motor and your ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Westcombe Park. Not happened yet? Below, the rest of the page covers the why it takes place and the ways to avoid it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to the motor — yet many modern diesels driven around Westcombe Park and Blackheath Royal Standard hold a second fluid as well. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Different tanks, different fillers. Plenty of motors have a single flap for both, whereas others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in that gap that the mistake happens.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank take place around Westcombe Park?
Carelessness seldom explains it. What does is three things coming up together.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from your car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Station Crescent, or at Angerstein Hotel on the way home after work.
Then your car is strange. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Third, the bottle goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in just as easily, and after the pour begins, nothing halts it. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Westcombe Park or out in New Charlton.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Westcombe Park forecourt or a drive over in Barton Yard, spend a couple of seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally aren't.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says which it lives if your filler is not next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver will know. Check as you pick up a rental or company car — at the nearest station's car park, say — rather than when the light appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
The day the light goes on, anywhere across Greater London, follow this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Humber Road.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — after you've located your filler and read the cap.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Discover at the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Never carry on to step five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Westcombe Park?
Brief order, then. First: the motor stays off. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Topping up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Sainsbury's, Asda or another forecourt will usually lend a hand to push the car away if asked. Your own drive in Westcombe Park is where it stays.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next exit means where to leave if you're on the M11, under 10 miles from Westcombe Park. A short hop across Westcombe Park is a smaller job than a run towards London, under 10 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
What occurs when our engineers get there around Westcombe Park
Outside Halstow Primary School, near St George's Church or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Both the work and the quote depend on three replies — which liquid, which quantity, and if it's run — so our technicians ask. You hear that price on the phone, before anybody sets off.
Then that tank is cleared and your system cleaned thoroughly. 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 the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. A test comes at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and your filter is flushed or changed if necessary. Next our technicians start it and confirm it runs correctly before leaving.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the engine hasn't run take roughly half an hour once our technicians arrive. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Westcombe Park and where it is
Westcombe Park is a suburban area in southeast London, situated approximately 6.5 miles from central London and 5.2 miles from the city centre. Westcombe Park is characterised by its predominantly terraced housing stock and lies near the Thames, close to neighbouring areas such as New Charlton and Maze Hill. Westcombe Park has a relatively low elevation of around 15 metres above sea level, typical of the London Basin. Westcombe Park is also near Charlton, with which it shares some local amenities.
AdBlue drains across Greater London, Westcombe Park included
Westcombe Park is a residential suburb, and the teams that cover it also work the towns around it, Maze Hill and Charlton among them, across the SE postcode area. Give a postcode that starts SE3 7, and the van gets there fastest.
No need to move the car. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near The Bridge, a lay-by on the way to East Greenwich Pleasaunce, a drive. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Mycenae House, ring and ask instead of assuming.
Westcombe Park motorists: the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave the vehicle switched off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, throughout Greater London.