AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Chavey Down: How It Happens and How to Avoid It
Leave your engine and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Normally, if your engine has not run, it is emptied and fully rinsed where your car sits in Chavey Down. Not happened yet? Below, the rest of the page explains the reasons it takes place and the how to avoid it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of current diesels on the roads around Chavey Down and Bullbrook carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to fresh them, from its own tank.
Every tank has a filler of its own. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on a lot of motors. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. The diesel side is topped up at the petrol pump all the time. Much less commonly, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur in Chavey Down?
Carelessness rarely causes it. Instead is three things coming up together.
Hurry follows from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a drive off Long Hill Road, or heading home in the car park outside The Running Horse.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand reaches 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. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Chavey Down or out in Martins Heron.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt in Chavey Down or a driveway out in Winkfield Row. A few seconds, no more.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of cars say there which fuel goes where.
- Cannot see it next to the diesel inlet? Then look below the bonnet or in your boot — the owner's manual will say which.
- The previous driver knows. Ask when you pick up a rental or fleet car — at Martins Heron's car park, perhaps — not when the warning appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Anywhere across Berkshire the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Pull in on level, motor off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Church Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and 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.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and look once more — confirm your diesel filler stayed shut throughout. After that, start the vehicle.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Never go on to step five.
Chavey Down: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Don't start the motor: that is how the short order of things starts. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the vehicle on. Topping up with diesel will not dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the bottom of the tank, right where fuel is taken from.
Ask the attendants to help roll the vehicle clear of the petrol pump if you are at a forecourt — the Esso, the Tesco or anywhere else. At home in Chavey Down? Then the vehicle remains where it is.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Leave the A329(M) — under 5 miles out of Chavey Down — at the first exit. A short hop across Chavey Down is a smaller job than a run towards Westminster, under 50 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival in Chavey Down, and what occurs next
Wherever the car came to rest, be it outside Whitegrove Primary School, beside St Martin's Church or at home, our van comes to it. Those replies determine this work and the price, and so our engineers ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. During the phone call itself, you are told the price — ahead of dispatch.
The fuel system is then flushed thoroughly, after your tank is emptied. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and none of it washes away unaided. Hence it matters more. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. We don't go until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
If your engine has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. It is worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Chavey Down and where it is
Chavey Down is a small village in Berkshire, situated inland at an elevation of 87 metres, and is located approximately 25.9 miles from London. Chavey Down has a population of around 571 residents and is characterized by semi-detached housing. Chavey Down is near several other villages, including Martins Heron, Whitegrove, and North Ascot, and is part of the wider South East region. Chavey Down remains a quiet residential community with a rural feel.
Chavey Down and Berkshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Whitegrove and North Ascot are among the towns near Chavey Down, a rural village, that the same teams cover, throughout SL postcodes. A postcode starting SL5 8 gets the van to you fastest.
The vehicle stays put. Anywhere it sits — near Ampitheatre, on a lay-by heading to Longhill Park, at home — that's where it is cleared. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Carnation Hall.
The short version for Chavey Down people
Before you pour, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it waits, anywhere around Berkshire.