How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Hartley Wintney
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and the ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Hartley Wintney. Not happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page explains the reasons it happens and the ways to prevent it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to the engine — but many modern diesels driven round Hartley Wintney and West Green hold a second fluid as well. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Some cars put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place the two together under one flap. Diesel goes in at every filling station call-out, again and again. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. The slip lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Hartley Wintney: how it happens
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from your car, and running out means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off High Street, or outside The Waggon & Horses on the way home that evening.
The old car's cap is where the hand goes — yet a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That's a second thing: an unfamiliar car.
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 tip once it has started. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Hartley Wintney or out in Hartfordbridge.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt around Hartley Wintney or a drive over in Hazeley Heath. A few seconds, no more.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Look inside your fuel flap: many vehicles have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Cannot find it next to your diesel inlet? In that case check beneath the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook will say where.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Winchfield, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
On the day the light comes on — wherever it is across Hampshire — a simple routine to use.
- Switch off after you park — level ground, motor off, and never rushed beside The Causeway on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two sit under a flap, make sure it's shut before the bottle comes up.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Find at stage two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop just there. Don't go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Hartley Wintney?
Brief list, then. Top of it: the engine stays off. Do not switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help roll the vehicle away from the pump if you're on a forecourt — the JET, the another forecourt nearby or somewhere else. Your own driveway around Hartley Wintney is where it should stay.
Where the engine has been run already, pull over somewhere safe then switch it off. The next junction is the place to leave when you're on the M3, under 3 miles from Hartley Wintney. Distance matters — a short hop across Hartley Wintney makes a smaller job than heading under 25 miles to Winchester — so say about how far it went.
What happens when our technicians arrive in Hartley Wintney
We come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Greenfields Junior School, near Hartley Wintney Methodist Church or on your own driveway. Both the work and the quote rest on three replies — which liquid, which quantity, and if it's run — so we ask. Nobody heads out before you've had the quote over the phone.
Then the tank is drained and the fuel system purged thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more here than with petrol. A test comes last: before that, fresh diesel is added, and your filter is cleaned or changed if necessary. After that our engineers start the engine and check it runs properly before we go.
Using pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your engine has not run need roughly half an hour after we arrive. No money upfront; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Before we get there, have a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Hartley Wintney and where it is
Hartley Wintney is a village in north-east Hampshire, situated in a rural area at an elevation of around 66 metres. Hartley Wintney lies approximately 36 miles west of London and 25 miles north of Winchester, with nearby villages including Hartfordbridge and Phoenix Green. Hartley Wintney has a population of around 2820 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Hartley Wintney remains a quiet, residential community with a strong sense of village identity.
Hartley Wintney and Hampshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Hartley Wintney is a rural village, and the vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Phoenix Green and Pheonix Green among them, across the RG postcode area. Give a postcode beginning RG27 8, and our van gets there quickest.
Your car remains put. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Oak Common, a side street near St John's Church: our technicians drain the car where it is. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Church of St Thomas More, ring and ask rather than assuming.
The short version for Hartley Wintney people
Before you tip, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it waits, anywhere around Hampshire.