Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Lordswood
Keep your engine and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Usually, if the engine has not run, it is drained and thoroughly cleaned where the car is in Lordswood. If you are 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 car need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads round Lordswood and Upper Shirley carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to 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.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Many of cars share a single flap for both, while others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less frequently, usually from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. The error lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place in Lordswood
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the vehicle, and letting it run out means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Lord's Hill Way, or outside The Sporting View on the way home that evening.
New-to-you vehicles are next, as well. Hire cars, new cars and company cars put their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Lordswood or out in Aldermoor.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these first, on a forecourt in Lordswood or a drive over in Coxford. Seconds, no more.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually aren't.
- On plenty of vehicles, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of motors have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- Can't see it next to your diesel filler? In that case look beneath the bonnet or inside the boot — the handbook says where.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Millbrook (Hants).
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Hampshire that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Petworth Gardens.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you have located your filler and read the cap.
- The two under a single flap? So make sure the lid on the diesel side stays shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Shut the cap, then check once more — making sure the diesel cap remained shut throughout. After that, start the car.
Find at the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Never carry on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Lordswood?
The short order of things, beginning with not starting the motor. The fuel pump runs on many diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Diluting it with more diesel won't work, since AdBlue sinks to the base instead of mixing — and that's where your fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help roll the vehicle clear of the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Sainsbury's, the Shell or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive in Lordswood.
Where your motor has run by now, pull over somewhere safe and turn the car off. Leave the M3 — under 3 miles out of Lordswood — at the first exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Southampton, under 3 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Lordswood.
Lordswood: what takes place when our technicians get there
Outside Oakwood Primary School, close to Lordswood Community Centre or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our engineers come to it. Both the work and the price rest on three replies — which fluid, which quantity, and if it's run — so our technicians ask. You get that quote by phone, before anybody sets off.
Then that tank is cleared and the fuel system rinsed thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. A test comes last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the filter is cleaned or changed as needed. Your engine is fired up next and tested to be sure it runs correctly, all before our technicians leave.
Unstarted vehicles usually need a half-hour job from arrival. The equipment is fine on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Lordswood and where it is
Lordswood is a suburban area in southern Hampshire, situated near the coast and approximately 2.9 miles from Southampton. Lordswood sits at an elevation of around 44 metres, with its terraced housing stock reflecting the area's development as a residential zone. Lordswood is close to other nearby places such as Aldermoor and Shirley Warren, and is part of the larger Southampton urban area. Lordswood has a population of around 5906 people, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains around Lordswood and across Hampshire
Throughout SO postcodes, our teams that cover Lordswood — a residential suburb — work the surrounding spots too, Shirley Warren and Lords Hill included. Quickest of all: give a SO16 8 postcode for the van.
There's no need to move the car. Anywhere it sits — near St Vincent De Paul Church, in a lay-by en route to Southampton Bike Park, on a drive — that is where it gets drained. Assuming won't help at the back of Kings Church Centre, on a boundary, or anywhere awkward to pin down; ring and ask.
The short version for Lordswood drivers
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere in Hampshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — and so leave the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103.