Hamble-le-Rice: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave the engine and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Usually, when the motor hasn't turned, it's emptied and thoroughly rinsed where your car sits in Hamble-le-Rice. Here before the event? In that case what follows explains how it comes about and how to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds the motor — but plenty of current diesels driven about Hamble-le-Rice and Bursledon carry another liquid as well. The exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to fresh it, from its own tank.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Filling the diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. The AdBlue side is filled far less often, usually from a bottle, and usually by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Hamble-le-Rice: how it happens
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things lining up at once.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Hamble House Gardens before work, or in the car park outside Ye Olde Whyte Hart on the way home.
The old car's filler is where your hand goes — yet a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That is the second thing: a new vehicle.
A spouted bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, once started, carries on. Whether it happens in Warsash or the middle of Hamble-le-Rice, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Butlocks Heath or a forecourt around Hamble-le-Rice, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Check the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually are not.
- On many vehicles, size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many vehicles have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it lives if your filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Hamble? Ask the person who drove the car last before you set off, rather than once the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — wherever you are around Hampshire — a simple routine to follow.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Cirrus Gardens.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- Both under one flap? Then confirm the cap on your diesel filler stays shut before lifting the bottle.
- Finish when your tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; before that, tip slowly using its built-in spout.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Step five is out.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Hamble-le-Rice?
Don't start the engine: that's how the short order of things starts. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Diluting it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of mixing — and that is where your fuel is sucked from.
On a forecourt — Esso, Tesco or another — the attendants will usually help push the car away, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Hamble-le-Rice.
Already run? Pull over when it's sensible, then switch off. The next exit is where to leave when you're on the M27, under 3 miles from Hamble-le-Rice. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Southampton, under 5 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Hamble-le-Rice.
Our arrival around Hamble-le-Rice, and what takes place next
The van reaches the car wherever it has come to rest — your own drive, beside Priory Church of St. Andrew the Apostle, or by Hamble Primary School. Both the work and our quote rest on three answers — what fluid, what amount, and if it's run — so our engineers ask. No one heads out before you've had the price over the phone.
Draining your tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the fuel 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. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. After that our technicians start the engine and confirm it runs correctly before we leave.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the engine hasn't run take about half an hour after we are there. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. It's worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Hamble-le-Rice and where it is
Hamble-le-Rice is a village in southern Hampshire, situated on the eastern shore of the Solent, with views across to the Isle of Wight. Hamble-le-Rice has a mix of old and new housing, but predominantly features detached homes, and is close to the nearby villages of Warsash and Newtown. Hamble-le-Rice sits at a low elevation of around 18 metres above sea level, near the mouth of the River Hamble. Hamble-le-Rice is within commuting distance of Southampton, which is about 5 miles away.
AdBlue drains around Hamble-le-Rice and across Hampshire
Hamble-le-Rice is a coastal village, and our vans that cover it also work the places near it, Newtown and Hound among them, across the SO postcode area. A postcode starting SO31 4 gets the van to you fastest.
There's no need to move your car. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Hamble Common, a side street near Hamble Village Memorial Hall: we drain the car where it is. Assuming won't help behind Air Transport Auxillary Memorial, on a boundary, or anywhere awkward to describe; phone and check.
The short version for Hamble-le-Rice people
Pour nothing until you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it sits, anywhere around Hampshire.