Lower Green: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Keep your motor and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before the engine runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Lower Green. Here before the event? In that case what follows explains why it comes about and how to stop it ever happening.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Not one fluid but two: that's how many newer diesels near Lower Green and Princes Marsh carry, with diesel for the motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
Each tank has one filler of its own. Other motors put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place the two side by side under one flap. At the petrol pump, the diesel side is topped up constantly. Seldom filled, AdBlue usually goes in out of a bottle, poured by a driver who has to stop and think which filler it needs. It is in the gap that the error happens.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Lower Green: how it occurs
Carelessness rarely causes it. What does is three things coming up at once.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the car, and letting it run out leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Rake Road, or at Liss Royal British Legion on the way home after work.
Unfamiliar cars come next, as well. Hire cars, new vehicles and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
No part stops the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Liss or the heart of Lower Green: it takes the same few seconds either way.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt around Lower Green or a drive over in West Liss. A few seconds, that's all.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler is if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park at Liss? Ask whoever drove it last before you set off, rather than when the light goes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
When the light goes on, anywhere in Hampshire, follow this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Moss Close.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the car, close the cap and look again that the diesel cap never opened off.
Find during the second or third step that the bottle went in the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Don't go on to step five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Lower Green?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting the motor. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch it on. Diluting it with extra diesel fails, because AdBlue settles to the bottom rather than mixing — and that's where your fuel is pulled from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it's the Esso or the Texaco, ask the attendants to help push the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. If you are on your own drive around Lower Green, leave it where it stands.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the motor has already run. Lower Green sits under 10 miles from the Waterlooville Bypass; on it, take the first exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Chichester, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Lower Green.
When our technicians turn up in Lower Green, what occurs?
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Liss Junior School, near Liss Triangle Community Centre or on your own driveway. We ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it's run, since the answers decide this work and the price. Nobody sets off before you have heard our price by phone.
Draining your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of your system. 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 is cleaned — or replaced, where required — clean diesel goes in, and then your vehicle is tested. Before we go, our engineers fire it up and make sure that it's running properly.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once our engineers arrive, provided the engine hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet at night beside a house. The insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. It is worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Lower Green
Lower Green is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Hampshire, with an elevation of around 71 metres. Lower Green lies near the cities of Chichester and Portsmouth, and is close to the villages of Liss and East Liss. Lower Green has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are predominant in the area. Lower Green is located approximately 45.9 miles from London, making it a commuter-friendly location.
Lower Green and Hampshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Over GU postcodes, our vans covering Lower Green — a residential suburb — work the nearby locations too, East Hill and East Liss included. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting GU33 7.
The car stays put. Draining happens right there, be it a drive, a road near Liss War Memorial, or a lay-by on the way to Newman Collard Playing Field. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Liss Village Hall.
For Lower Green people, the short version
Tip no AdBlue until you have read the cap. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it stands, anywhere around Hampshire: keep the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.