Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Durrants
Stop here for a moment when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, done just where your car stands in Durrants, is usually all it needs when caught before the engine runs. 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.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds your engine — yet plenty of newer diesels driven round Durrants and Stockheath carry a second liquid as well. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, and there spraying cleans the gas.
Each tank comes with a filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that's the layout on a lot of vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less regularly, normally from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in that gap that the error lives.
Durrants: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
On a drive off Whichers Gate Road before work, or in the car park at The Robin Hood on the way home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low your car warns you, and once it is gone, limp mode kicks in.
Then the vehicle is new. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part stops the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Durrants or out in Rowlands Castle.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Whether a Durrants forecourt or a driveway out in Denvilles, take a few seconds over these before any is poured in.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually do not.
- On many cars, the size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows which it is when the filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask when you pick up a hire car or fleet car — from Rowlands Castle's car park, perhaps — not once the warning appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — anywhere it is across 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 Whichers Close.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, yet it works.
- The two behind one flap? Then confirm the lid on the diesel side is still closed before lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and check once more — confirm your diesel filler remained shut the whole time. Only then, start the vehicle.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? So stop right there. Stage five is out.
Durrants: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
The short order of things, beginning with not starting the motor. Do not switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Thinning it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue settles to the bottom instead of mixing — and that's where the fuel is pulled from.
Ask the staff to help push your car away from the petrol pump if you're on a forecourt — the Shell, the BP or somewhere else. If you are on your own driveway around Durrants, leave it where it sits.
When the engine has run by now, pull over somewhere safe and turn the vehicle off. Come off the Waterlooville Bypass — under 3 miles out of Durrants — at the first exit. A short hop across Durrants is a smaller job than a run towards Portsmouth, under 10 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Durrants: what occurs when we arrive
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Rowlands Castle St John's Church of England Controlled Primary School, near St John the Baptist or on your own drive. Both the work and our price depend on three replies — which liquid, which amount, and if it has run — so our technicians ask. The quote is given over the phone, before any van leaves.
The fuel system is then cleaned thoroughly, after that tank is emptied. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and none of that washes away by itself. Hence it matters more. Testing is last: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and your filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. We don't leave until it has been started and is running correctly.
If your motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Durrants and where it is
Durrants is a small village in southern Hampshire, situated near the coast and approximately 7.9 miles northwest of Portsmouth. Durrants has a population of around 697 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Durrants is close to nearby places such as Rowlands Castle, West Leigh, and Leigh Park, and is about 56.5 miles southwest of London.
AdBlue drains around Durrants, and Hampshire beyond
West Leigh and Leigh Park are among the places around Durrants, a coastal village, that the same teams cover, throughout PO postcodes. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting PO9 6.
There's no need to shift the vehicle. Anywhere it sits — near St John's Church Centre, on a lay-by heading to Rowland's Copse, Red Hill, at home — that is where it is cleared. Assuming won't help behind King's Stone, on a boundary, or anywhere hard to describe; ring and check.
For Durrants motorists, the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere in Hampshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless — so leave the car off then call 0333 366 0103.