Grayshott: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then put this page down a moment, leave your ignition and motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Usually, when the motor has not turned, it is drained and fully flushed where the car sits around Grayshott. Reading before the event? In that case the rest explains how it comes about and what to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel feeds the engine — yet plenty of newer diesels driven about Grayshott and Beacon Hill carry a second liquid too. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the gas to fresh it, from its own tank.
There is a filler on each tank. Other vehicles put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty more have the two side by side under one flap. The diesel side is topped up at the pump all the time. Much less often, the AdBlue side gets filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens around Grayshott
Carelessness seldom causes it. What does is three things lining up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Hill Road before work, or in the car park at The Fox and Pelican on the way home.
Unfamiliar vehicles come second, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company motors place their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the pour once it has started. It's a few seconds, whether in Whitmoor Bottom or bang in the centre of Grayshott.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt around Grayshott or a drive out in Hindhead. A few seconds, no more.
- Position can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it is if the filler isn't next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Haslemere, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — anywhere you are across Hampshire — a simple routine to follow.
- Switch off once parked — flat ground, engine stopped, and not in a rush by Crossways 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 does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the car on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at the second or third step that the bottle went into the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Do not go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Grayshott already?
Don't start your engine: that's where the short order of things starts. Keep your ignition off as well, since on many diesels it alone starts your fuel pump. Topping up with diesel will not dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of your tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help push your car clear of the petrol pump if you're at a forecourt — the BP, the Royal Parade Stores or somewhere else. On your own drive in Grayshott? So the vehicle remains where it is.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. On the M3, under 15 miles from Grayshott, that means the next junction. A short hop across Grayshott is a smaller job than a run towards Chichester, under 25 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
What happens when our technicians arrive in Grayshott
By Grayshott Church of England Controlled Primary School, close to Greyshott Village Sign or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Both the work and the quote depend on three replies — which fluid, what amount, and whether it's run — so our engineers ask. You hear that price on the phone, before anyone sets off.
Then that tank is cleared and the system purged thoroughly. More than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: the crystals build up, some metals corrode, and none of that clears out on its own, no matter how long it sits. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Before we go, our technicians fire it up and make sure that it is running correctly.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine hasn't run take about half an hour once our engineers are there. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. While we travel, take a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Grayshott, briefly
Grayshott is a village in the South East of England, situated in Hampshire, with an elevation of 204 metres. Grayshott lies near the Surrey border, close to Whitmoor Bottom and Nutcombe, and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Grayshott is located approximately 38.5 miles from London and 19 miles from Chichester, making it a rural community with access to nearby cities.
AdBlue drains about Grayshott, and Hampshire beyond
Grayshott is a rural village, and our vans that cover it also work the places around it, Nutcombe and Bramshott Chase among them, across the GU postcode area. Fastest of all: quote a GU26 6 postcode to our van.
Your car does not need to move. We drain it where it is — a side street near St Luke's Church Grayshott, a lay-by on the way to Grayshott Playing Fields, a driveway. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Grayshott Village Hall, ring and ask instead of guessing.
The short version for Grayshott drivers
Always, the cap; after that, the pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it stands, anywhere in Hampshire.