AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Denmead: Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and your ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Denmead. The rest of this page covers why it happens and how to make sure it does not — handy if you are reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Not one fluid but two: that's what plenty of modern diesels near Denmead and Anthill Common carry, with diesel for the motor. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the fumes to clean it, from its own tank.
Separate tanks, different fillers. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled on every filling station visit, week in, week out. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, tipped by a driver who must stop and think which cap to use. The error lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens in Denmead
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from your car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Hambledon Road, or at Forest of Bere on the way home that evening.
The old car's filler is where the hand reaches — yet a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That is a second thing: an unfamiliar motor.
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 pour once it has started. Whether it takes place in Anmore or the middle of Denmead, it is the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Denmead forecourt or a drive over in Eastland Gate, spend a few seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Look for it.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check when you pick up a rental or fleet car — from Cosham's car park, perhaps — rather than once the warning appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
On the day the light appears — anywhere it is in Hampshire — a simple routine to follow.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Ludcombe.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, yet it works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Stop once the tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour gently through the built-in spout.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and check again that the diesel cap was never opened off.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Skip step five altogether.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Denmead?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with not starting your engine. Do not switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Diluting it with more diesel fails, because AdBlue settles to the bottom rather than mixing — and that's where your fuel is pulled from.
At a forecourt — BP, Sainsbury's or any other — the attendants will normally help push your car away, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around Denmead.
When the engine has been run already, stop safely then turn it off. The next exit is where to leave if you're on the A3(M), under 3 miles from Denmead. A short hop across Denmead is a smaller job than a run towards Portsmouth, under 10 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
Denmead: what takes place when we arrive
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Denmead Infant School, close to All Saint's Church or on your own driveway. Which liquid went in, the amount, and if it ran: we ask since those answers decide the work and price. On the phone call itself, you are told the price — before dispatch.
Emptying the tank comes next, then a full flush of the 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 does not wash out on its own. Filter flushed or, where it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a test of your car. We don't go until it has been started and is running smoothly.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour after our engineers get there, as long as the motor hasn't run — and the pumps we use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. Nothing upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Denmead and where it is
Denmead is a village in Hampshire, situated near the River Wallington and close to the cities of Portsmouth and Southampton. Denmead has a population of around 1298 people and is characterized by semi-detached housing. Denmead sits at an elevation of 49 metres, within the South East region of England, and is located near other small settlements such as Anmore and Furzeley Corner.
AdBlue drains round Denmead, and Hampshire beyond
Soake and Furzeley Corner are among the places near Denmead, a village, that the same vans cover, throughout PO postcodes. A postcode starting PO7 6 gets our van to you fastest.
The vehicle doesn't need to move. Draining takes place right there, be it a driveway, a street by All Saint's Church Hall, or a lay-by towards Denmead Village Green. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of 1st Denmead Scout Hut, ring and ask rather than assuming.
The short version for Denmead motorists
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave the car off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere across Hampshire.