Regents Park: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Pause reading for a moment when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out just where the vehicle sits around Regents Park, is usually all it needs when found before the motor runs. The rest of this page covers why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Plenty of newer diesels around Old Shirley, as well as Regents Park, carry on two liquids; the engine gets just your diesel. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has a filler of its own. Many of cars share a single flap for both, while others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally goes in from a bottle, poured by a driver who has to stop and think which cap to use. That gap is where the error lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen around Regents Park?
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
Hurry comes from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off Regents Park Road, or on the way home in the car park outside Regents Park Hotel.
New-to-you vehicles come second, as well. Rentals, new motors and company motors put their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap 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 tip after it has started. It's seconds, whether in Shirley Park or bang in the heart of Regents Park.
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 drive in Shirley or a forecourt in Regents Park.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of cars have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it is when your filler isn't next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Millbrook (Hants), ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
The day the light comes on, wherever around Hampshire, use this routine.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time to spare — never rushing on the side of Claremont Crescent.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Don't go on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Regents Park?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your motor. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch it on. Filling up with diesel won't dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of that tank, just where fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — Costco Gasoline, Asda Express or another — the staff will normally help roll your car clear, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Regents Park.
When your motor has run already, pull over somewhere safe and turn it off. On the M271, under 3 miles from Regents Park, that means the next junction. Distance counts — a short hop across Regents Park makes a smaller job than driving under 3 miles to Southampton — so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival around Regents Park, and what happens next
Our technicians come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Foundry Lane Primary School, close to Freemantle Baptist Church or on your own driveway. The answers determine this work and the price, and so our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has run. Nobody heads out until you've had our price over the phone.
The system is then purged thoroughly, once that tank is cleared. More than with petrol, it counts here: the crystals build up, some metals are attacked, and nothing washes away unaided, no matter how long it sits. Once the fuel filter is flushed — or replaced, where required — fresh diesel is added, and then your car gets tested. We don't go until it has been started and is running smoothly.
If your engine has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies — so use the wait to check yours.
About Regents Park itself
Regents Park is a suburban area in southern Hampshire, situated near the coast and close to the city of Southampton. Regents Park has a relatively low elevation of around 11 metres above sea level, and is bordered by other residential areas such as Shirley Park and Millbrook. Regents Park is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, and is home to a population of approximately 8208 people. Regents Park is also conveniently located near Freemantle and other local amenities.
AdBlue drains across Hampshire, Regents Park included
Over SO postcodes, our vans covering Regents Park — a residential suburb — work the surrounding spots too, Freemantle and Millbrook included. A postcode starting SO15 8 gets the van to you fastest.
Shifting the car isn't needed. The drain takes place on the spot, be it a drive, a road by The Maskers theatre company, or a layby on the way to Cedar Lodge Park. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Studio Red, ring and ask instead of assuming.
In short, for Regents Park motorists
Before you pour, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave the car off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it sits, anywhere around Hampshire.