How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Havant
Leave your motor and ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Usually, when your engine hasn't turned, it is emptied and thoroughly purged where the car sits in Havant. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Many modern diesels on the roads round Havant and Langstone carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
Each tank has its own filler. 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 your diesel side at the petrol pump happens constantly. Much less commonly, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place around Havant
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
On a driveway off New Road Roundabout before work, or in the car park at From Beer to Eternity on the way home: that's where the rushed top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it's gone, limp mode kicks in.
The old car's cap is where the hand reaches — yet a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is a second factor: a new motor.
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 after it has started. It takes a few seconds, whether in Stockheath or right in the centre of Havant.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Be it a Havant forecourt or a driveway out in Denvilles, spend a couple of seconds over these before any goes in.
- Check the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually are not.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The previous driver knows. Ask when you collect a hire car or fleet car — at the nearest station's car park, perhaps — rather than when the light appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Hampshire that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of New Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- The two under one flap? So make sure the lid on the diesel filler stays closed before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Find at the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Skip step five entirely.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Havant?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your engine. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels as soon as the ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Thinning it with more diesel won't work, since AdBlue settles to the bottom rather than mixing — and that's where your fuel is pulled from.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it's the Tesco or the BP, ask the attendants to help push the vehicle clear of the pump. Your own driveway around Havant is the place it stays.
When the motor has been run by now, stop somewhere safe and turn it off. The next junction means where to come off if you are on the A3(M), under 3 miles from Havant. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Havant is smaller a job than a trip of under 10 miles towards Portsmouth, so tell us.
What takes place when our technicians turn up around Havant
Wherever the car came to rest, whether by Trosnant Junior School, near Public Service Plaza or at home, the van travels to it. Those answers determine the work and our price, and so we ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has run. On the phone call itself, you hear our price — before anything else.
Then that tank is cleared and the system cleaned 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 doesn't wash out on its own. Once the fuel filter has been flushed — or replaced, where needed — fresh diesel is added, and finally your vehicle gets tested. We do not go until it has been started and is running correctly.
If your engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It is worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Havant itself
Havant is a coastal town situated in the south-east of Hampshire, England, with nearby cities including Portsmouth and Southampton. The town is part of a larger borough that also encompasses Hayling Island and other surrounding towns. Havant has undergone significant development, particularly in the years following World War II, when the area experienced a substantial transformation from rural land to residential housing. Its location near the coast and other major towns makes it a notable settlement in the region.
AdBlue drains about Havant, and Hampshire beyond
Being a coastal town, Havant shares its vans surrounding areas — Brockhampton, Bedhampton — all the way through PO postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Give a postcode beginning PO9 1, and the van gets there fastest.
Moving the car is not needed. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Havant Justice Centre., a lay-by on the way to Havant Park, a drive. Assuming doesn't help behind Havant Leisure Centre, on a border, or somewhere awkward to describe; ring and ask.
For Havant people, the short version
Read the cap before you tip. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it wherever it is, wherever around Hampshire: keep it off and call 0333 366 0103.