Greenham: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Stop reading for a moment if the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then phone 0333 366 0103. In Greenham, finding it before your motor turns normally means draining and a full flush on the spot. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Diesel feeds the motor — yet plenty of newer diesels driven about Greenham and Ham Marsh hold a second liquid as well. The exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to fresh it, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. The mistake grows in the gap between them.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Greenham: how it happens
Carelessness rarely causes it. Instead is three things coming up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Bury's Bank Road before work, or in the car park outside The Two Watermills on the way home.
New-to-you motors are next, too. Rentals, new cars and company cars place their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap it 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 tip after it has started. Whether it occurs in Burys Bank or the middle of Greenham, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Whether a Greenham forecourt or a driveway out in Adbury, spend a couple of seconds on these before any goes in.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- On many cars, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Check inside your fuel flap: many cars carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Cannot see it next to your diesel filler? Then check beneath the bonnet or in the boot — the handbook 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 at Newbury Racecourse.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
Wherever in Berkshire the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Pinchington Lane.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" out loud while unscrewing it. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Discover during the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the diesel tank? That's where you stop. Do not go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Greenham already?
Don't start the motor: that's how the short order of things begins. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the car on. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is pulled from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the Tesco or the Sainsbury's, ask the attendants to help roll the car away from the petrol pump. If you are on your own driveway in Greenham, leave the car where it sits.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next exit is where to come off when you are on the M4, under 5 miles from Greenham. Distance counts — a short hop across Greenham is a smaller job than heading under 25 miles to Winchester — so tell us about how far it went.
Greenham: what happens when our engineers turn up
Our van comes to the vehicle wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or by The Willows Primary School. Both the work and the price depend on three replies — which liquid, what amount, and if it's run — so we ask. During the call itself, you hear the quote — before dispatch.
Then that tank is drained and the fuel system flushed thoroughly. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. Once your filter is cleaned — or replaced, where required — clean diesel is added, and then the car gets tested. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once our technicians arrive, provided your motor has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a live forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to check yours.
About Greenham and where it is
Greenham is a rural village in Berkshire, situated inland at an elevation of around 128 metres. Greenham lies approximately 51.5 miles west of London and 22.3 miles north of Winchester, with nearby areas including Burys Bank, East Fields, and Newtown. Greenham has a population of around 1456 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
AdBlue drains across Berkshire, Greenham included
Greenham is a rural village, and our teams that cover it also work the towns around it, East Fields and Newtown among them, across the RG postcode area. Give a postcode beginning RG14 7, and the van gets there fastest.
No need to move your car. Draining happens right there, whether a drive, a road near West Berks Indoor Bowls Club, or a lay-by on the way to Gora Wood. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of St Mary's Greenham.
The short version for Greenham motorists
Before you pour, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it sits, anywhere across Berkshire.