AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Hammonds Green: Why It Happens and How to Stop It
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then set this page down a moment, leave your ignition and engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Usually, when your motor hasn't turned, it is drained and fully purged where your vehicle is around Hammonds Green. 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 motor, and its separate tank
No single liquid but two: that is what plenty of modern diesels near Hammonds Green and Rushington run, with diesel for your motor. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on many cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Filling your diesel side at the pump happens constantly. Far less commonly, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. The mistake grows in that gap between the two.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens in Hammonds Green
It's seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from your car, and letting it run out leads to limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Brackley Way, or at Saxon Inn on the way home after work.
Then the vehicle is new. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have 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, and so nothing stops the pour after it has started. Testwood or the heart of Hammonds Green: it is the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Ashurst Bridge or a forecourt around Hammonds Green, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Position can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of cars carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park at Totton? Check with whoever drove it last before you set off, rather than once the light goes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Hampshire that is.
- Pull in somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Haltons Close.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to stage five.
Hammonds Green: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The short order of things, beginning with no starting your engine. Keep the ignition off too, because on many diesels switching it on by itself runs the pump. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
Ask the staff to help roll your car clear of the pump if you are at a forecourt — the Morrisons, the Esso or anywhere else. On your own drive around Hammonds Green? Then your car remains where it is.
Already started? Pull over once it's safe, then turn off. Leave the M27 — under 3 miles out of Hammonds Green — at the first junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Southampton, under 5 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Hammonds Green.
When we arrive around Hammonds Green, what occurs?
Our van reaches the vehicle wherever it stopped — your own driveway, beside Kingdom Hall of Jehovahs Witnesses, or outside Oakfield Academy. Which liquid was put in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our technicians ask since the replies decide both work and quote. On the call itself, you hear the quote — before dispatch.
The system is then flushed thoroughly, once your tank is cleared. 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. The filter flushed or, if it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; then a test of the car. Before we go, we fire it up and check that it's running properly.
With pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor has not run need roughly half an hour once we are there. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents your insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Hammonds Green, briefly
Hammonds Green is a suburban area located near the coast in Hampshire, with an elevation of around 9 metres above sea level. Hammonds Green sits close to the city of Southampton, approximately 4.7 miles away, and is near other places such as Testwood, Calmore, and Totton. Hammonds Green has a population of around 6651 people and is characterised by predominantly terraced housing.
AdBlue drains in Hammonds Green and across Hampshire
Calmore and Totton are among the towns near Hammonds Green, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, throughout SO postcodes. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting SO40 2.
Your car remains put. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Folly Plantation, a side street near The Chapel: our engineers drain the vehicle where it stands. Tricky to explain, like the back of Testwood Baptist Church? Close to a county line? Asking is better than assuming, so ring.
In short, for Hammonds Green drivers
Read the cap before you tip. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it wherever it is, anywhere around Hampshire: keep it off and call 0333 366 0103.