How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Abbotts Barton
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and the ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. Around Abbotts Barton, catching it before the engine runs normally leaves a drain and a full flush on the spot. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
No single fluid but two: that is how many newer diesels near Abbotts Barton and Headbourne Worthy run, with diesel feeding the engine. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to clean them, from its own tank.
There's a filler on each tank. Many of cars have a single flap for both, while some move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Filling the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side is filled — normally from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. The mistake grows in the gap between them.
Abbotts Barton: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
On a drive off Park Road before work, or in the car park at Jolly Farmer heading home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low your car warns you, and if it is gone, limp mode kicks in.
New-to-you motors come next, as well. Rentals, new vehicles and company vehicles put their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after started, keeps on. Whether it occurs in Hyde or the middle of Abbotts Barton, it's the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Look at these first, at a forecourt in Abbotts Barton or a driveway over in Winchester. Seconds, that's all.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue caps are often blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally do not.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Check for it.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler is if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check as you pick up a hire car or company car — from Winchester's car park, say — not when the light appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Anywhere in Hampshire the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Courtenay Road.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both share a flap, confirm it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then look again — confirm the diesel cap stayed closed the whole time. After that, start the car.
Find during the second or third stage that the bottle went in the wrong tank? That's where you stop. Stage five is out.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Abbotts Barton?
Brief order, then. First: your engine remains unstarted. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
On a forecourt — Esso, Shell or any other — the attendants will usually help push your car clear, if you ask. On your own drive around Abbotts Barton? Then your car remains where it is.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. On the M3, under a mile from Abbotts Barton, that means the next junction. About how far did it go? Crossing Abbotts Barton is less a job than a run of under a mile towards Winchester, and so say.
What happens when our engineers turn up around Abbotts Barton
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside St Bede Church of England Primary School, close to Winchester Islamic Centre or on your own drive. Which liquid was put in, the amount, and whether it ran: we ask since those replies set both work and price. On the call itself, you are told the price — before anything else.
Emptying that tank comes next, then a full flush of your system. More than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: the crystals form, certain metals are attacked, and nothing clears out unaided, no matter how long it sits. Testing is at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the filter is cleaned or changed if necessary. We do not leave until it has been started and is running correctly.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor has not run take about half an hour after our engineers are there. 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's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Abbotts Barton, briefly
Abbotts Barton is a suburban area located on the outskirts of Winchester in Hampshire, sitting alongside the River Itchen at an elevation of around 69 metres. Abbotts Barton is characterized by its predominantly flat housing stock, with many residential buildings in the area being flats. Abbotts Barton is close to nearby places such as Hyde, Fulflood, and Winnall, and is situated approximately 0.9 miles from the city centre of Winchester. Abbotts Barton is also within commuting distance of London, being around 59.3 miles away.
AdBlue drains around Abbotts Barton and across Hampshire
Being a residential suburb, Abbotts Barton shares its vans surrounding places — Fulflood, Winnall — right across SO postcodes and the wider area around them. Quote a postcode beginning SO23 7, and our van gets there quickest.
The car does not need to shift. Anywhere it sits — beside Saint Bartholomew's, in a lay-by en route to Hillier's Haven, on a drive — that's where it gets drained. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Winchester Lido.
Abbotts Barton people: the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere around Hampshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — so leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.