Deepcut: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Pause here a minute when the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. In Deepcut, finding it before the motor turns usually means a drain and a thorough flush on the spot. Reading before the event? Then the rest covers how it comes about and what to stop it ever happening.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Diesel goes to the engine — yet plenty of newer diesels seen about Deepcut and Pirbright Camp hold a second fluid as well. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where a spray treats the gas.
Every tank has one filler of its own. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled on every filling station visit, again and again. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less commonly, normally from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. Mistakes happen in that gap between the two.
Deepcut: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Haste comes from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a drive off Deepcut Bridge Road, or heading home in the car park at The Frog.
Unfamiliar vehicles are second, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company cars put their fillers differently, and the hand reaches for the cap used on the old one.
No part stops the tip once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Deepcut or out in Frimley Green.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Whether a Deepcut forecourt or a driveway over in Frimley, spend a few seconds on these before anything goes in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally isn't. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — many vehicles show what belongs in each inlet right there.
- The handbook shows which it lives if the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Farnborough North, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Surrey that is.
- Switch off once parked — level ground, motor off, and never rushed beside Blackdown Road at the roadside.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — after you have located the filler and read the cap.
- The two under a single flap? So confirm the lid on your diesel side stays closed before lifting the bottle.
- Finish when the tank fills or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip slowly using the own spout.
- Before you start your car, close the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap never came off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Skip step five entirely.
Deepcut: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with no starting your motor. Leave the ignition off as well, because on many diesels switching it on by itself starts the pump. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
Ask the staff to help push the vehicle away from the petrol pump if you're at a forecourt — the JET, the Texaco or somewhere else. If you're on your own driveway around Deepcut, leave the car where it is.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Come off the M3 — under 3 miles out of Deepcut — at the first exit. A short hop across Deepcut is a smaller job than a run towards Westminster, under 50 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
When our engineers arrive around Deepcut, what happens?
Wherever the car has stopped, be it by Sandringham Infant & Nursery Academy, beside Deepcut Village Centre or on your own drive, the van comes to it. Our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has run, since the answers settle this work and the quote. During the call itself, you are told our price — ahead of anything else.
Next: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. A test is last: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and the filter is cleaned or changed as needed. The engine is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs properly, all before our technicians head off.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once our technicians arrive, provided your motor hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a live forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. The insurer usually wants the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. While we travel, have a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Deepcut, briefly
Deepcut is a small village in Surrey, situated inland at an elevation of around 115 metres, approximately 28 miles from London. Deepcut lies near the villages of Frimley Green and Heatherside, and is characterized by its predominantly terraced housing. Deepcut has a population of around 1264 residents, and is part of the wider commuter belt around London.
AdBlue drains round Deepcut, and Surrey beyond
Over GU postcodes, our teams that cover Deepcut — a rural village — work the nearby spots too, Heatherside and Frimley Ridge included. Quickest of all: give a GU16 6 postcode to our van.
The vehicle does not need to move. We drain it where it is — a side street near St. Barbara’s, a lay-by on the way to Woodend Road Playground, a drive. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Pine Ridge Ten-pin Bowling Alley? By a county line? Asking is better than assuming, and so phone.
For Deepcut people, the short version
Pour no AdBlue till you have read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Leave the car switched off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, throughout Surrey.