Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Kingswood Warren: Why It Happens
Pause here for a moment when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then phone 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, done right where your vehicle stands in Kingswood Warren, is usually all it takes if found before your engine runs. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Not one fluid but two: that's what many modern diesels around Kingswood Warren and Tadworth run, with diesel feeding the engine. The exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to fresh them, from a separate tank.
Each tank has one filler of its own. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot more place the two side by side behind one flap. Diesel gets filled at every filling station visit, again and again. The AdBlue side is topped up far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Kingswood Warren: how it happens
Carelessness seldom causes it. What does is three things coming up together.
Haste follows from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off Hamilton Place, or heading home in the car park at Kingswood Arms.
Then the car 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 once it has started. It's a few seconds, whether out in Kingswood or right in the heart of Kingswood Warren.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Whether a Kingswood Warren forecourt or a driveway out in Burgh Heath, take a couple of seconds over these before anything is poured in.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually don't.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on many vehicles. Look for it.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver knows. Check as you pick up a rental or fleet car — from Kingswood's car park, perhaps — not when the warning appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Surrey that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Bears Den.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- Both behind a single flap? Then make sure the lid on your diesel filler stays closed before raising the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Find at the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Stage five stays off limits.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Kingswood Warren?
Short order, then. Top of it: the motor stays off. Keep the ignition off as well, since on many diesels it alone starts your pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
On a forecourt — Shell, Texaco or another — the attendants will normally help roll the vehicle away, when you ask. If you're on your own drive in Kingswood Warren, leave the car where it sits.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. Leave the M25 — under 3 miles out of Kingswood Warren — at the next junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Westminster, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Kingswood Warren.
When our technicians turn up around Kingswood Warren, what happens?
Outside Tadworth Primary School, near The Mansion or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our engineers come to it. Which fluid was put in, the amount, and if it ran: our engineers ask since the answers decide the work and price. The quote is given over the phone, before any van leaves.
Emptying that tank comes next, then a full flush of your 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 does not wash out on its own. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. After that our engineers fire it up and confirm it runs properly before we go.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after our engineers arrive, as long as the motor has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. It is worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Kingswood Warren and where it is
Kingswood Warren is a suburban area in Surrey, situated inland at an elevation of 171 metres, approximately 15.5 miles from London. Kingswood Warren is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting the area's residential development. Kingswood Warren is close to nearby places such as Kingswood, Hogden Bottom, and Mugswell, and is part of the wider South East region. Kingswood Warren has a population of around 1260 residents.
Kingswood Warren and Surrey: AdBlue drains across the area
Being a residential suburb, Kingswood Warren shares its vans surrounding areas — Hogden Bottom, Mugswell — all the way across KT postcodes and the wider area around them. A postcode starting KT20 6 gets the van to you fastest.
Moving the vehicle is not needed. We drain it where it is — a side street near St Andrews, a lay-by on the way to Smugglers Pit Plantation, a drive. Awkward to pin down, like the back of War Memorial [Kingswood & Tadworth]? By a border? Asking beats assuming, so ring.
In short, for Kingswood Warren motorists
Tip no AdBlue till you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere across Surrey, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — and so leave the car off then ring 0333 366 0103.