Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Phoenix Green: Why It Occurs

AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers

Diesel goes to the engine — yet plenty of newer diesels driven about Phoenix Green and Hartley Wintney carry a second fluid too. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to fresh them, from a separate tank.

Every tank comes with a filler of its own. Some cars keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place both together under one flap. Diesel goes in on every forecourt visit, week in, week out. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less commonly. It is in the gap that the slip happens.

How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one

A few seconds is all these take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Murrell Green or a forecourt around Phoenix Green.

• Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
• Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
• The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of cars say there which fuel goes where.
• The handbook. If your filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
• 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 outside Winchfield.

Phoenix Green: what happens when we arrive

Our van reaches the car wherever it has come to rest — your own drive, near St Mary, or by Greenfields Junior School. Those answers determine this work and our price, and so we ask what went in, about how much, and if it's run. On the call itself, you are told our price — before dispatch.

The fuel system is then flushed thoroughly, after that tank is cleared. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more here than with petrol. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. The motor is fired up next and tested to be sure it runs correctly, all before our engineers head off.

Unstarted cars usually mean a half-hour visit after arrival. The kit is safe on a live filling station, and quiet enough for a residential street late at night. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Wrong-fuel cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.