AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Aarons Hill: How It Occurs and How to Stop It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and the ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. In Aarons Hill, catching it before the engine turns normally leaves draining and a thorough flush where it stands. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Not one liquid but two: that is what many newer diesels around Aarons Hill and Godalming carry, with diesel feeding the engine. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the gas to clean them, from a separate tank.
Each tank comes with a filler of its own. Many of motors share a single flap for the two, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at every forecourt visit, again and again. Rarely topped up, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think which cap it needs. That gap is where the mistake lives.
Aarons Hill: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the vehicle, and letting it run out means limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Aarons Hill, or at Inn on the Lake on the way home after work.
Next, your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — because a rental car, a new car or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
Lastly, the bottle goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in as readily, and once the pour begins, no part stops it. It's seconds, be it in Ockford Ridge or bang in the heart of Aarons Hill.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A couple of seconds is all these take — so check them before you tip anything, on a drive in Holloway Hill or a forecourt around Aarons Hill.
- Read the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask when you collect a hire car or fleet car — from Godalming's car park, say — rather than once the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Surrey that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Eashing Lane.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two share a flap, make sure it's closed before the bottle comes up.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, and look again — confirm the diesel cap remained shut the whole time. After that, start your car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't carry on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Aarons Hill?
The short order of things, beginning with no starting your engine. Keep your ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels switching it on alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel won't dilute it: instead, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, just where fuel is taken from.
Ask the staff to help push the car away from the pump if you are on a forecourt — the JET, the Shell or somewhere else. If you are on your own drive in Aarons Hill, leave it where it is.
Where the engine has run by now, stop safely then turn the vehicle off. Aarons Hill sits under 15 miles from the M3; on it, use the first junction. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Chichester, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Aarons Hill.
Aarons Hill: what occurs when we arrive
The van reaches the car wherever it stopped — your own drive, near St Mark's Church and Community Centre, or outside St Mark and All Saints Church of England Primary. What fluid was put in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our technicians ask since the answers set the work and price. You hear that price on the phone, before anyone heads out.
Next: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of it clears away by itself. That is why it counts more. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. The engine is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs smoothly, all before our technicians head off.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour after our technicians arrive, as long as the engine hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, have a look at your policy; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Aarons Hill itself
Aarons Hill is a suburban area in Surrey, situated near the riverside with an elevation of 78 metres. Aarons Hill lies within the South East region of England, approximately 31 miles from London. Aarons Hill is surrounded by nearby places such as Ockford Ridge, Westbrook, and Upper Eashing, and is characterized by predominantly semi-detached housing. Aarons Hill has a population of around 1937 residents.
Aarons Hill and Surrey: AdBlue drains across the area
Aarons Hill is a residential suburb, and our vans that cover it also work the places around it, Westbrook and Upper Eashing among them, across the GU postcode area. Quote a postcode beginning GU7 2, and our van gets there quickest.
There's no need to move the vehicle. Draining takes place right there, be it a drive, a street by First Church of Christ Scientist, Godalming, or a lay-by on the way to Bargate Wood. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Godalming Meeting.
For Aarons Hill drivers, the short version
Read the cap before you tip. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it stands, anywhere around Surrey: switch the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103.