AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Coles Meads: Why It Happens and How to Prevent It
Keep your motor and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Usually, when the motor hasn't turned, it is drained and fully purged where the car is in Coles Meads. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads around Coles Meads and Gatton carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler for each tank. Plenty of vehicles share a single flap for both, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Much less regularly, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. It is in that gap that the slip happens.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Coles Meads: how it takes place
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
On a driveway off North Mead before work, or in the car park at The Jolly Brickmakers on the way home: that's where the rushed top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car warns you, and once it's gone, limp mode follows.
Unfamiliar vehicles come second, as well. Hire cars, new motors and company motors put their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
Third, the bottle fits: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as easily, and once the pour starts, nothing halts it. It's seconds, be it in Holmethorpe or right in the heart of Coles Meads.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt in Coles Meads or a driveway over in Wray Common. Seconds, no more.
- Read the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually aren't.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Open the flap and look for a label — many cars mark which goes in which filler right there.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Redhill.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
The day the light comes on, wherever across Surrey, follow this routine.
- Pull in on level, motor off, with time in hand — not rushing on the side of Gatton Park Road.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — after you have located the filler and read the cap.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Spot at stage two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? So stop just there. Leave out step five altogether.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Coles Meads?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the engine. Leave the ignition off too, because on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself starts your pump. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help roll the car away from the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the Esso, the BP or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Coles Meads.
When your engine has run by now, pull over safely then turn the car off. Leave the M25 — under a mile out of Coles Meads — at the first junction. A short hop across Coles Meads is a smaller job than a run towards Westminster, under 25 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
Coles Meads: what takes place when we get there
We come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside St Matthew's CofE Primary School, near Sports Building or on your own drive. What fluid went in, the amount, and if it ran: our technicians ask since the answers set the work and quote. No one heads out before you have heard the price over the phone.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. More than with petrol, it matters here: crystals form, certain metals corrode, and nothing washes out on its own, no matter how long it is left. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. The engine is fired up next and checked to be sure it runs smoothly, all before we leave.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour after our engineers arrive, provided the engine hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet at night beside a house. The insurer will ask for an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. While we travel, have a look at your insurance documents; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Coles Meads, for a moment
Coles Meads is a suburban area in Surrey, situated inland at an elevation of 94 metres, and is located approximately 17.8 miles from London. Coles Meads is characterized by its semi-detached housing and is near several other places, including Holmethorpe and Redhill. Coles Meads has a population of around 4673 people and is close to the city of Westminster, which is about 17.4 miles away.
Coles Meads and Surrey: AdBlue drains across the area
Over RH postcodes, our teams that cover Coles Meads — a residential suburb — work the nearby locations too, Subrosa and Redhill among them. Fastest of all: quote a RH1 2 postcode for the van.
No need to move the vehicle. The drain happens on the spot, whether a driveway, a road by Holy Trinity Church Hall, or a layby on the way to Colesmead Recreation Ground. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Holy Trinity.
In short, for Coles Meads motorists
Before you tip, read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, throughout Surrey.