How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Capel
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then put this page down for now, keep the ignition and motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. Usually, when your motor has not run, it is drained and fully flushed where the vehicle is in Capel. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel goes to the engine — yet many modern diesels driven around Capel and Ockley carry another liquid too. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank has one filler of its own. Many of motors share a single flap for both, while others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is fuelled at the petrol pump all the time. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. It's in that gap that the error happens.
Capel: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things lining up at once.
On a driveway off The Street before work, or in the car park at The Crown on the way home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and once it is empty, limp mode kicks in.
New-to-you vehicles are next, too. Rentals, new motors and company cars put their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap it 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. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Capel or out in Clarks Green.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Holmwood Corner or a forecourt around Capel.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says where it lives when the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver knows. Ask as you pick up a rental or fleet car — at Ockley's car park, perhaps — not once the light appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
Anywhere across Surrey the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Old Barn Drive, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park then switch off properly.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you've located the filler and read the cap.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour 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 your car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Leave out step five altogether.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Capel already?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting the motor. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch it on. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help roll the car away from the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Murco, the Esso or somewhere else. Your own drive in Capel is where it should stay.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Come off the M23 — under 10 miles out of Capel — at the first junction. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Capel is smaller a job than a run of under 25 miles towards Brighton and Hove, and so say.
When our technicians arrive around Capel, what happens?
Anywhere the car has stopped, whether outside Scott-Broadwood CofE Infant School, near St. John's Church or at home, the van comes to it. Our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it has run, since the answers decide the work and the price. That quote is given over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Emptying the tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the fuel system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and none of it washes out unaided. Hence it matters more. A test is at the end: before that, fresh diesel is added, and your filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running properly.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after our engineers arrive, provided the motor has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet after dark beside a house. No money in advance; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. While we travel, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Capel, for a moment
Capel is a village in Surrey, situated on the banks of the River Mole at an elevation of around 88 metres. Capel is located near the villages of Clarks Green, Beare Green, and Newdigate, and is characterized by its semi-detached housing stock. Capel sits in a rural area, approximately 25.8 miles from London and 24.1 miles from Brighton and Hove. Capel has a population of around 887 residents.
AdBlue drains around Capel and across Surrey
Capel is a village, and our teams that cover it also work the towns around it, Beare Green and Newdigate among them, across the RH postcode area. Quote a postcode that starts RH5 5, and the van gets there fastest.
Shifting the car is not necessary. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Capel Recreation Ground, a side street close to Capel Memorial Hall: we drain it where it sits. Awkward to pin down, like the back of Capel Military Show? By a county line? Checking beats assuming, so phone.
The short version for Capel people
Tip nothing till you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it waits, anywhere around Surrey.