Enham Alamein: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and the ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, carried out right where your vehicle stands around Enham Alamein, is usually all it needs if caught before the engine runs. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel goes to the engine — but plenty of newer diesels driven round Enham Alamein and Smannell hold a second liquid as well. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
Each tank has a filler of its own. Plenty of cars have a single flap for the two, while some move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. The AdBlue side is filled far less regularly, normally from a bottle, and usually by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in that gap that the error lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Enham Alamein: how it takes place
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
Haste comes from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off Newbury Road, or on the way home in the car park at Hare and Hounds.
Next, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old motor — because a rental car, a new car or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
Nothing stops the tip after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Upper Enham or the heart of Enham Alamein: it takes the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in East Anton or a forecourt around Enham Alamein, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Check the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue ones are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually are not.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of vehicles. Check for it.
- The handbook shows where it lives if the filler is not next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Andover.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
When the light comes on, anywhere across Hampshire, use this routine.
- Turn off after you park — flat ground, engine stopped, and not in a rush by Kings Road at the roadside.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, but it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the car on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the car, close the cap and check again that the diesel cap never came off.
Discover at the second or third step that AdBlue went in the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Do not go on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Enham Alamein?
Do not start your motor: that's where the short order of things starts. Leave your ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself runs your fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
Ask the staff to help roll the car away from the petrol pump if you're on a forecourt — the Tesco, the BP or anywhere else. If you're on your own drive around Enham Alamein, leave it where it sits.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the motor has already run. Enham Alamein sits under 15 miles from the M3; there, use the first junction. Distance matters — a quick hop across Enham Alamein makes a smaller job than driving under 15 miles to Winchester — so tell us about how far it went.
Enham Alamein: what takes place when we arrive
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Endeavour Primary School, close to Saint George or on your own drive. Which liquid went in, the amount, and whether it ran: our engineers ask since those replies decide both work and price. You get that quote by phone, before anyone sets off.
Draining that tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the system. Much more than with petrol, it counts here: the crystals build up, certain metals corrode, and nothing clears away unaided, no matter how long it is left. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Next our technicians fire it up and make sure it runs correctly before we leave.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour after we arrive, provided your engine has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a live forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. No money in advance; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Enham Alamein
Enham Alamein is a village in Hampshire, situated inland at an elevation of around 90 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type. Enham Alamein lies approximately 14 miles from Winchester and 61 miles from London, placing it within the wider South East region. Enham Alamein is surrounded by nearby places such as Upper Enham, Knights Enham, and Little London, and has a population of around 795 residents. Enham Alamein remains a relatively small and quiet community with a mix of local amenities and rural surroundings.
AdBlue drains round Enham Alamein, and Hampshire beyond
Knights Enham and Little London are among the towns near Enham Alamein, a rural village, that the same teams cover, over SP postcodes. Give a postcode beginning SP11 6, and the van gets there fastest.
The car doesn't need to shift. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near Saint Michael and All Angels, a lay-by on the way to Bilgrove Copse, a driveway. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Poppy Park Memorial, ring and ask instead of guessing.
The short version for Enham Alamein motorists
Always, the cap; after that, the tip. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere in Hampshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless — so leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103.