Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Fryern Hill: Why It Occurs
Stop reading for a moment if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, carried out right where your car sits in Fryern Hill, is normally what it needs when caught before the motor runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Diesel feeds your engine — yet plenty of current diesels seen about Fryern Hill and Cuckoo Bushes hold another liquid too. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Some vehicles put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place the two side by side behind one flap. Filling the diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less frequently, normally from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. The error lives in that gap.
Fryern Hill: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things coming up together.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the vehicle, and running dry means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Oakmount Road, perhaps at Halfway Inn on the way home after work.
Then your car is strange. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Lastly, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in as readily, and after the tip begins, no part halts it. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Fryern Hill or out in Chandlers Ford.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Whether a Fryern Hill forecourt or a drive over in Hocombe, spend a couple of seconds on these before any goes in.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the flap and look for a label — many vehicles mark what goes in each inlet right there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler is if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check as you pick up a hire car or company car — at Chandlers Ford's car park, perhaps — not when the warning appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Hampshire that is.
- Turn off after you park — flat ground, engine off, and not rushed by Peverells Road on the verge.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud while unscrewing it. It sounds silly. It works.
- Both under a single flap? Then confirm the lid on your diesel filler is still shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find during the second or third step that the bottle went into the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Don't go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Fryern Hill?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your engine. Keep the ignition off as well, since on many diesels switching it on by itself runs your pump. Thinning it with more diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the base instead of mixing — and that is where your fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help push the car clear of the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Shell, the Esso or somewhere else. If you're on your own drive in Fryern Hill, leave the vehicle where it sits.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the motor has already run. The next junction means the place to leave when you're on the M3, under a mile from Fryern Hill. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Southampton, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Fryern Hill.
Fryern Hill: what happens when our technicians arrive
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Fryern Infant School, near Chandler's Ford Library or on your own drive. We ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, because the replies decide the work and the price. On the phone call itself, you hear the quote — ahead of dispatch.
Draining that tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the system. With AdBlue that counts 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. Filter flushed or, if needed, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a check of the vehicle. Before we leave, our technicians start the car and check that it's running correctly.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once our engineers get there, provided the motor hasn't run — and the pumps we use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Fryern Hill
Fryern Hill is a suburban area in Hampshire, situated near the River Itchen and close to the city of Southampton. Fryern Hill has a relatively low elevation of 44 metres and is located near several other residential areas, including Chandlers Ford and Hiltingbury. Fryern Hill is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its development as a residential suburb. Fryern Hill is also within commuting distance of London, being around 64.7 miles away.
AdBlue drains round Fryern Hill, and Hampshire beyond
Being a residential suburb, Fryern Hill shares its vans nearby places — Boyatt Wood, Hiltingbury — right through SO postcodes and the wider area beyond. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting SO53 2.
There's no need to move the vehicle. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Fryern Rec, a side street close to Fryern Hill Pavillion: we drain the vehicle where it is. Awkward to pin down, like the back of Dovetail Centre? By a border? Checking is better than assuming, so phone.
In short, for Fryern Hill drivers
Pour nothing until you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere around Hampshire.