AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Broad Layings: Why It Happens and How to Avoid It
Stop reading for a moment if the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out right where your vehicle sits around Broad Layings, is usually all it needs if caught before your motor runs. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
No single fluid but two: that is how plenty of newer diesels around Broad Layings and Enborne Row run, with diesel for the engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust gas to clean it.
Every tank comes with a filler of its own. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place both together behind one flap. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. Far less often, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens in Broad Layings
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Longmead before work, or in the car park outside The Rampant Cat on the way home.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip after it has started. Whether it takes place in Woolton Hill or the middle of Broad Layings, it's the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these first, on a forecourt around Broad Layings or a driveway over in Pound Street. A few seconds, no more.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- Cannot find it next to your diesel inlet? Then look beneath the bonnet or in your boot — the owner's manual will say where.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Newbury, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Hampshire that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Harwood Rise.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap works — once you have located the filler and read it.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both share a flap, confirm it is shut before the bottle comes up.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Never carry on to step five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Broad Layings?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting your engine. Don't switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Shell, Sainsbury's or another forecourt will usually help pushing the car clear when you ask. If you're on your own drive in Broad Layings, leave the vehicle where it is.
Where your motor has run already, pull over somewhere safe then turn the car off. The next exit means where to leave if you are on the M4, under 10 miles from Broad Layings. A short hop across Broad Layings is a smaller job than a run towards Winchester, under 25 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
Broad Layings: what takes place when our technicians get there
Our technicians come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Woolton Hill Junior School, near Woolton Hill Church Hall or on your own driveway. Those answers determine this work and the quote, so we ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it has run. No one sets off until you've had our price by phone.
The system is then purged thoroughly, once the tank is drained. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Your engine is fired up next and checked to confirm it runs correctly, all before our engineers go.
If the motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents your insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Broad Layings
Broad Layings is a suburban area in Hampshire, situated inland at an elevation of 119 metres, and is located near the city of Winchester. Broad Layings is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, and is close to nearby places such as Woolton Hill and Highclere. Broad Layings has a population of approximately 1622 residents, and is within commuting distance to London, being around 54.6 miles away.
Broad Layings and Hampshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Broad Layings is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the places near it, Penwood and Highclere among them, across the RG postcode area. Give a postcode beginning RG20 9, and our van gets there fastest.
There's no need to shift your car. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Pen Hill Wood, a side street near St. Thomas': our technicians drain the car where it stands. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Highclere Village Hall.
In short, for Broad Layings people
Pour nothing till you've read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it wherever it stands, wherever around Hampshire: switch it off then ring 0333 366 0103.