Marchwood: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Marchwood. The remainder of this page explains why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Many modern diesels around Freemantle, like those in Marchwood, carry on two liquids; the engine gets just your diesel. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, and there a spray treats the gas.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Some motors put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others have both together behind one flap. At the pump, the diesel side gets filled all the time. Seldom filled, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think which cap to use. The mistake lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens in Marchwood
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
On a driveway off Oakland Drive before work, or in the car park at The Roebuck on the way home: that is where the rushed top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car warns you, and once it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
New-to-you motors are next, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company cars put their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
Nothing stops the tip once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It takes seconds, whether out in Pooksgreen or right in the heart of Marchwood.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Look at these first, on a forecourt in Marchwood or a driveway out in Applemore. A few seconds, that's all.
- Read the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — many vehicles mark which belongs in each filler just there.
- Cannot find it beside your diesel filler? In that case check below the bonnet or inside the boot — the handbook says where.
- Check with 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 outside Millbrook (Hants).
How to top up without AdBlue in 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 engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Saint Johns Court.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. When the two sit under a flap, confirm it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Finish once that tank fills or the bottle is empty; before that, pour slowly using the own spout.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Discover at the second or third stage that the bottle went into the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Do not go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Marchwood?
Do not start your motor: that's where the short order of things starts. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it is the Certas or the Asda Express, ask the staff to help roll the car away from the pump. At home in Marchwood? Then your car remains put.
When the motor has been run by now, stop somewhere safe then turn the vehicle off. Marchwood lies under 3 miles from the M271; on it, use the first exit. Distance counts — a quick hop across Marchwood is a smaller job than heading under 3 miles to Southampton — so tell us about how far it went.
What happens when our engineers arrive around Marchwood
By Marchwood Junior School, near St Johns' The Apostle Church or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, our engineers come to it. We ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, because the answers decide this work and the quote. No one heads out until you have had the price by phone.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole 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 doesn't wash out on its own. Filter flushed or, where it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a check of your car. Next our engineers fire it up and make sure it runs smoothly before we go.
If the motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a busy 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's worth looking at your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Marchwood and where it is
Marchwood is a coastal village in Hampshire, situated near the city of Southampton and overlooking the waters of Southampton Water. Marchwood sits at a low elevation of around 9 metres, and its location near the New Forest makes it a desirable residential area. Marchwood has a mix of housing types, but detached homes are particularly prevalent in the village. Marchwood is also close to nearby places such as Pooksgreen and Dibden, making it a connected community.
AdBlue drains across Hampshire, Marchwood included
Over SO postcodes, our vans that cover Marchwood — a coastal village — work the surrounding locations too, Dibden and Regents Park among them. A postcode starting SO40 4 gets our van to you fastest.
Shifting the car is not necessary. Anywhere it stands — beside Marchwood Gospel Church, on a lay-by heading to Crooked Hayes Copse, on a drive — that is where it gets drained. Assuming won't help behind All Saints, Dibden, close to a boundary, or anywhere hard to pin down; phone and ask.
For Marchwood drivers, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around Hampshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — and so leave it off and call 0333 366 0103.