Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Hound: Why It Occurs
Stop reading a minute if the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Hound. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads round Hound and Bursledon carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to fresh them, from a separate tank.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the arrangement on a lot of cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Filling the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. The mistake lives in that gap.
Hound: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
It's seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a drive off Hound Way before work, or in the car park at The Cottage on the way home: that is where the rushed top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and once it's empty, limp mode follows.
Next, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old car — since a rental car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
Third, the bottle fits: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in just as readily, and after the tip starts, nothing stops it. Whether it takes place in Butlocks Heath or the middle of Hound, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Lowford or a forecourt around Hound, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally aren't.
- Many motors give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on many vehicles. Check for it.
- Cannot find it beside the diesel inlet? Then look beneath the bonnet or inside the boot — the owner's manual says where.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Netley, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
When the light comes on, anywhere across Hampshire, follow this routine.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Woolston Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, yet it works.
- The two behind a single flap? Then make sure the cap on your diesel filler stays closed before lifting the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, shut the cap and check again that the diesel cap was never opened off.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? Then stop just there. Stage five is off limits.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Hound?
Don't start the motor: that's where the short order of things starts. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the car on. Filling up with diesel will not thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of that tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
Ask the staff to help roll the car clear of the petrol pump if you're on a forecourt — the Tesco, the BP or somewhere else. On your own drive around Hound? Then the vehicle remains put.
Where the motor has run by now, stop somewhere safe and switch the car off. Hound lies under 3 miles from the M27; there, use the first exit. A short hop across Hound is a smaller job than a run towards Southampton, under 5 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival around Hound, and what happens next
Our van comes to the vehicle wherever it stopped — your own drive, beside St Mary's, or outside Netley Abbey Junior School. The answers settle the work and the quote, and so our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and whether it has run. During the phone call itself, you are told our quote — before dispatch.
Your system is then cleaned thoroughly, once your tank is cleared. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes out by itself. That is why it counts more. The filter cleaned or, if it must be, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a test of the car. After that our engineers fire it up and confirm it runs correctly before we go.
Unstarted cars usually mean a half-hour visit after arrival. The equipment is fine on a live filling station, and quiet enough for a driveway late at night. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once this job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Hound itself
Hound is a small coastal village in Hampshire, situated near the city of Southampton and overlooking the Solent Strait. Hound has a population of around 645 residents and is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock. Hound sits at a low elevation of 18 metres above sea level, close to nearby places such as Butlocks Heath, Netley, and Old Netley.
AdBlue drains around Hound, and Hampshire beyond
Hound is a coastal village, and our teams that cover it also work the places near it, Netley and Old Netley among them, across the SO postcode area. Quote a postcode beginning SO31 5, and our van arrives fastest.
The car remains where it is. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Hound Road local nature area, a side street near Hound Parish Hall: our engineers drain the car where it is. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Hamble Sports Complex.
The short version for Hound motorists
Read the cap before you tip. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave it off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Hampshire.