How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Woodside
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Woodside. Not happened yet? Below, the rest of the page explains the reasons it takes place and the how to avoid it for good.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Many newer diesels around Monks Orchard, like those in Woodside, carry on two liquids; the engine takes only your diesel. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have both side by side under one flap. Filling your diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. The mistake grows in that gap between the two.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place around Woodside
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Birchanger Road, or at The Joiners Arms on the way home after work.
Next, your hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old car — because a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip after it has started. South Norwood or the heart of Woodside: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Whether a Woodside forecourt or a driveway out in Shirley, take a couple of seconds over these before any is poured in.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally aren't.
- On many cars, size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on many cars. Look for it.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Norwood Junction, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
When the light comes on, anywhere across Greater London, use this routine.
- Switch off after you park — flat ground, engine off, and never rushed beside Becket Close on the verge.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you've located your filler and read the cap.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the car, shut the cap and check again that your diesel cap was never opened off.
Discover during the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Step five stays out.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Woodside?
Do not start the motor: that is where the short order of things starts. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch it on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
The attendants at Shell, Esso or another forecourt will usually lend a hand to push the car away when asked. Your own driveway in Woodside is where it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the engine has already run. Come off the M23 — under 10 miles out of Woodside — at the first junction. Distance counts — a short hop across Woodside makes a smaller job than driving under 10 miles towards Westminster — so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our engineers turn up around Woodside, what happens?
Outside St Thomas Becket Catholic Primary School, near Woodside War Memorial or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, we come to it. Which liquid got in, the amount, and if it ran: our engineers ask since those answers decide the work and price. On the phone call itself, you hear the price — before anything else.
The fuel system is then purged thoroughly, once your tank is emptied. Much more than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: the crystals form, certain metals corrode, and nothing clears out unaided, no matter how long it is left. After the filter has been flushed — or replaced, if required — clean diesel is added, and then your vehicle is tested. Before leaving, we start the engine and check that it is running correctly.
If your motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Woodside
Woodside is a suburban area in south London, situated approximately 8.5 miles from central London and 8.1 miles from Westminster. Woodside sits at an elevation of around 51 metres, with its terraced housing stock reflecting the typical residential architecture of the region. Woodside is located near other suburban areas such as South Norwood, Addiscombe, and Selhurst, and has a population of around 15,053 residents.
AdBlue drains across Greater London, Woodside included
Being a residential suburb, Woodside has the same vans as surrounding places — Addiscombe, Selhurst — all the way through SE postcodes and the surrounding area around them. A postcode starting SE25 5 gets the van to you fastest.
The car doesn't need to move. The drain happens on the spot, be it a driveway, a street by St. Luke's, or a layby on the way to Woodside Green. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of St Luke's Church Hall.
Woodside motorists: the short version
Always, the cap; then, the tip. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave it off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere around Greater London.