How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Alton
Stop reading for a moment if the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Alton. Nothing happened yet? Below, the page covers the reasons it takes place and the how to prevent it altogether.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Many modern diesels on the roads around Alton and Hackthorn carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream and cleans it.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less commonly. It's in the gap that the error happens.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens around Alton
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
On a driveway off High Street before work, or in the car park at the pub in the village on the way home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car tells you, and if it's empty, limp mode follows.
Next, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old car — because a rental car, a new car or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
No part halts the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Figheldean or the middle of Alton: it is the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A few seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you tip anything, on a drive in Brigmerston or a forecourt in Alton.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue ones are often blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- The size. On plenty of motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Ask 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 outside Grateley.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Anywhere around Wiltshire the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Not in a rush on the side of A345, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park then switch off first.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — after you've found your filler and read it.
- Both under a single flap? Then confirm the cap on your diesel side is still shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Finish when that tank fills or the bottle is empty; until then, pour slowly using the own spout.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Spot at stage two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? Then stop just there. Don't carry on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Alton?
The short order of things, starting with no starting your engine. Leave your ignition off too, because on many diesels it by itself starts your fuel pump. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom rather than mixing — and that's where the fuel is sucked from.
The attendants at Esso, Murco or another forecourt will normally lend a hand to push the car away when asked. If you are on your own drive in Alton, leave the car where it sits.
Already started? Stop once it is sensible, then turn off. On the M4, under 25 miles from Alton, that means the next exit. Distance matters — a quick hop across Alton is a smaller job than driving under 15 miles towards Salisbury — so say roughly how far it went.
When our engineers get there around Alton, what happens?
Our van comes to your car wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside St Michael and All Angels, or by Durrington All Saints Church of England Voluntary Controlled Infants' School. The answers decide this work and our price, and so we ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it has run. Nobody sets off before you've heard our price over the phone.
After that: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither washes away unaided. Hence it counts more. Once the fuel filter is flushed — or replaced, where needed — clean diesel goes in, and then your vehicle gets tested. Then our engineers fire it up and confirm it runs properly before we go.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once our technicians arrive, as long as your motor has not run — and the pumps we use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. Your insurer will ask for the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Alton itself
Alton is a small hamlet in Wiltshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 83 metres, near the city of Salisbury. Alton lies within a rural area, close to nearby places such as Figheldean, Ablington, and Milston. Alton has a population of approximately 536 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Alton is located about 74 miles west of London, in the South West region of England.
AdBlue drains around Alton and across Wiltshire
Alton is a rural hamlet, and our vans that cover it also work the places around it, Ablington and Milston among them, across the SP postcode area. Give a postcode that starts SP4 8, and the van arrives quickest.
Shifting the vehicle isn't needed. Anywhere it stands — near Barrow Clump, in a lay-by en route to Barrow Clump, at home — that is where it gets cleared. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of St Mary, ring and ask rather than guessing.
The short version for Alton motorists
Pour nothing till you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave it off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere around Wiltshire.