Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Beasleys Ait
Keep the motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Caught before your engine runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Beasleys Ait. The remainder of this page covers why it happens and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Many modern diesels on the roads round Beasleys Ait and Upper Halliford 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.
Each tank has its own filler. Many of cars share a single flap for the two, whereas others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Topping up the diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. Rarely topped up, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think what filler to use. The slip lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Beasleys Ait: how it occurs
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
Hurry follows from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a drive off Felix Road, or on the way home in the car park at The Anglers.
Unfamiliar motors come next, too. Rentals, new cars and company cars put their fillers differently, and the hand goes for the cap used on the old one.
Nothing stops the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it takes place in Ash Estates or the middle of Beasleys Ait, it is the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Be it a Beasleys Ait forecourt or a driveway over in Ashley Park, spend a few seconds over these before anything is poured in.
- Check the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually are not.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on many cars. Look for it.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver knows. Check as you collect a hire car or fleet car — at Shepperton's car park, perhaps — not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
When the light goes on, anywhere in Surrey, use this routine.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of The Halliards.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Stop when your tank fills or the bottle is empty; before that, pour slowly using the own spout.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap was never opened off.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Skip step five entirely.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Beasleys Ait?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your engine. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Diluting it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the base instead of blending — and that is where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help push your car clear of the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the Esso, the BP or anywhere else. Your own driveway in Beasleys Ait is where it should stay.
Already run? Pull over when it is safe, then turn off. The next exit means the place to come off if you're on the M3, under 3 miles from Beasleys Ait. A short hop across Beasleys Ait is a smaller job than a run towards Westminster, under 15 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
Beasleys Ait: what happens when our technicians get there
By Grovelands Primary School, close to Riverhouse Barn or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. What liquid got in, the amount, and if it ran: we ask since those replies decide the work and quote. You hear that price by phone, before anyone sets off.
Then that tank is emptied and your system cleaned thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. Once the filter is cleaned — or replaced, where needed — clean diesel goes in, and then the car is tested. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
Unstarted vehicles usually need a half-hour visit from the moment we arrive. The equipment is fine on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours once the job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Beasleys Ait, for a moment
Beasleys Ait is a suburban area located on the lakeside in Surrey, with a low elevation of around 11 metres. Beasleys Ait sits near the towns of Walton-on-Thames and Lower Halliford, and is close to the neighbourhood of Ash Estates. Beasleys Ait is characterized by its semi-detached housing and is situated approximately 14.8 miles from London.
AdBlue drains around Beasleys Ait, and Surrey beyond
Being a residential suburb, Beasleys Ait has the same vans as surrounding areas — Walton-on-Thames, Lower Halliford — right across TW postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. A postcode starting TW16 6 gets our van to you fastest.
The car remains put. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Thamesmead Open Space, a side street close to Walton-on-Thames Methodist Church: our engineers drain the car where it is. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Elmbridge Xcel Sports Hub Climbing Wall.
For Beasleys Ait people, the short version
Pour nothing until you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave it off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it stands, anywhere across Surrey.