Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Freemantle
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case put this page aside for now, keep your ignition and engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Freemantle. 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 car, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to your motor — yet many modern diesels driven round Freemantle and Regents Park hold a second fluid as well. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to fresh them, from its own tank.
There is a filler for each tank. Many of cars share a single flap for both, whereas others move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is topped up at the pump all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, poured by a driver who must stop and think which filler it needs. It's in the gap that the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank happen around Freemantle?
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a driveway off Paynes Road before work, or in the car park at The Freemantle heading home: that's where the rushed top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car warns you, and if it's gone, limp mode follows.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new car 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.
Nothing halts the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It takes seconds, whether in Hill or right in the heart of Freemantle.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt around Freemantle or a drive over in Banisters Park. Seconds, no more.
- Position can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually don't.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Look for it.
- Cannot see it next to the diesel filler? Then check below the bonnet or inside your boot — the owner's manual says where.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Millbrook (Hants).
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Hampshire that is.
- Switch off after you park — flat ground, engine off, and not in a rush by Lisbon Road on the verge.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — once you have located your filler and read the cap.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Discover at the second or third stage that the bottle went in the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Never carry on to step five.
Freemantle: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The short order of things, starting with no starting the motor. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the vehicle on. Topping up with diesel won't dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of the tank, just where fuel is taken from.
The staff at BP, Costco Gasoline or any forecourt will usually lend a hand pushing your car clear if you ask. On your own drive in Freemantle? Then your car stays where it is.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. On the M271, under 3 miles from Freemantle, that means the next junction. Mileage counts — a quick hop across Freemantle makes a smaller job than heading under 3 miles to Southampton — so say roughly how far it went.
What takes place when we turn up in Freemantle
Our van reaches the vehicle wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside UCKG HelpCentre, or outside Freemantle Church of England Community Academy. What fluid got in, the amount, and whether it ran: our engineers ask since the replies decide the work and quote. You get that price on the phone, before anyone sets off.
Next: draining, then a full flush of the entire system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. The filter flushed or, if it must be, replaced; fresh diesel in; and then a check of your car. The motor is fired up next and tested to be sure it runs properly, all before our technicians go.
Using pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor has not run need about half an hour after we arrive. 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, so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Freemantle itself
Freemantle is a coastal suburban area in Hampshire, situated near the city of Southampton. Freemantle sits at a low elevation of around 14 metres, with many of its residents living in flats. Freemantle is close to other nearby places such as Hill, Polygon, and Shirley, and is located approximately 69.5 miles from London.
Freemantle and Hampshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout SO postcodes, our vans that cover Freemantle — a residential suburb — work the nearby places too, Shirley and Polygon among them. Quote a postcode that starts SO15 3, and the van gets there quickest.
The car doesn't need to shift. The drain happens on the spot, whether a drive, a road near Christ Church, Freemantle, or a layby towards Friends of the Field - Shirley Playing Fields. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Freemantle Evangelical Church, ring and ask rather than guessing.
For Freemantle people, the short version
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere across Hampshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — and so leave it off then phone 0333 366 0103.