Ashurst: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? In that case set this page down a moment, keep your ignition and motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. In Ashurst, finding it before your engine turns usually leaves a drain and a thorough flush on the spot. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads around Ashurst and Ashurst Bridge carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There is a filler for every tank. Some cars put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have both together under one flap. Diesel goes in at each filling station visit, again and again. Much less frequently, the AdBlue side gets filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. It's in that gap that the mistake lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Ashurst: how it takes place
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from your car, and running out means limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Ash Road, perhaps outside The Happy Cheese on the way home after work.
The old car's cap is where your hand reaches — but a hire car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That's the second thing: an unfamiliar vehicle.
A spouted bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, after started, keeps on. Colbury or the heart of Ashurst: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
A few seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Netley Marsh or a forecourt around Ashurst.
- Position misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- On plenty of motors, size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside the fuel flap: many motors have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows which it lives if your filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Ashurst New Forest.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
Wherever in Hampshire the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Holly Road, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park and switch off first.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It seems daft. It does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the vehicle on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Spot at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop just there. Don't go on to step five.
Ashurst: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your motor. Don't switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel will not dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of that tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Morrisons, Esso or another — the attendants will usually help roll the car clear, if you ask. If you are on your own driveway around Ashurst, leave it where it sits.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. On the Nursling Spur Motorway, under 5 miles from Ashurst, that means the next junction. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Southampton, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Ashurst.
What occurs when our technicians arrive around Ashurst
Wherever the car has stopped, be it by Foxhills Junior School, near Church Place Royal Hunting Lodge or on your own drive, our van travels to it. What fluid went in, the amount, and if it ran: our engineers ask since those replies decide the work and price. No one heads out before you have had our quote by phone.
Emptying that tank comes next, followed by a full flush of your system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither clears out by itself. Hence it counts more. A test comes at the end: before that, clean diesel is added, and the filter is flushed or replaced as needed. The engine is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs smoothly, all before we leave.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor hasn't run take roughly half an hour once our engineers are there. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Ashurst
Ashurst is a small village in Hampshire, situated near the coast and close to the New Forest. Ashurst lies approximately 5 miles from Southampton and 73 miles from London, with its detached houses reflecting the area's residential character. Ashurst is surrounded by nearby places such as Colbury, Foxhills, and Woodlands, and has a population of around 633 people. Ashurst's elevation of 20 metres above sea level gives it a relatively low-lying position in the coastal landscape.
AdBlue drains in Ashurst and across Hampshire
Being a coastal village, Ashurst has the same vans as surrounding areas — Foxhills, Woodlands — right through SO postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. A postcode starting SO40 7 gets our van to you fastest.
The car does not need to shift. The drain happens right there, whether a drive, a street by Longdown Activity Farm, or a lay-by towards The Roadway. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Christ Church, Colbury? Close to a county line? Checking beats guessing, so phone.
Ashurst people: the short version
Always, the cap; after that, the pour. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it where it is, wherever around Hampshire: keep the car off then ring 0333 366 0103.