How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Sherfield on Loddon
Leave the motor and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. In Sherfield on Loddon, finding it before your engine runs normally leaves a drain and a full flush where it stands. The rest of this page explains why it takes place and how to ensure it does not — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many newer diesels around Bramley Green, as well as Sherfield on Loddon, carry on two liquids; your engine gets just your diesel. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
Every tank has one filler of its own. Plenty of motors share a single flap for the two, whereas others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in at every filling station call-out, week in, week out. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place in Sherfield on Loddon
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
On a drive off Reading Road before work, or in the car park at The Four Horseshoes on the way home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car tells you, and if it's gone, limp mode kicks in.
New-to-you vehicles are second, as well. Rentals, new cars and company motors put their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap it used on the old one.
No part stops the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Sherfield on Loddon or out in Church End.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a drive in Wildmoor or a forecourt around Sherfield on Loddon.
- Position misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually do not.
- Plenty of cars fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of cars carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Cannot see it next to your diesel filler? Then check below the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook will say which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Bramley (Hants)? Check with the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, rather than once the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
The day the light goes on, anywhere in Hampshire, use this routine.
- Pull in somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never rushing on the side of Breach Gardens.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, yes, yet it works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Stop when your tank fills or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip gently using the own spout.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Never go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Sherfield on Loddon already?
Brief order, then. Top of it: the engine remains unstarted. Keep the ignition off too, because on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the BP or the Tesco, ask the attendants to help roll your car away from the pump. On your own drive in Sherfield on Loddon? Then the vehicle remains where it is.
Already run? Stop when it is sensible, then switch off. The next exit means the place to leave if you're on the M3, under 5 miles from Sherfield on Loddon. Mileage counts — a short hop across Sherfield on Loddon is a smaller job than heading under 25 miles to Winchester — so tell us about how far it went.
Sherfield on Loddon: what occurs when our technicians get there
Anywhere the car came to rest, whether outside Bramley Church of England Primary School, beside Sherfield on Loddon Village Hall or on your own drive, our van comes to it. What fluid went in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our technicians ask since those replies decide both work and price. You get that price on the phone, before anybody sets off.
After that: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that counts more here than with petrol. Testing is at the end: before that, clean diesel is added, and the filter is flushed or changed if necessary. Your engine is fired up next and checked to make sure it runs smoothly, all before our engineers leave.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once our technicians arrive, provided your motor hasn't run — and the pumps we use are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet after dark beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. While we travel, have a look at your policy; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Sherfield on Loddon itself
Sherfield on Loddon is a village situated in the valley of the River Loddon in Hampshire, with a mix of old and new housing, predominantly detached homes. Sherfield on Loddon has a population of around 1385 residents and is located near the villages of Church End and Spanish Green. Sherfield on Loddon sits at an elevation of 59 metres, close to the river and surrounded by countryside. Sherfield on Loddon is within commuting distance of major cities, including London and Winchester.
AdBlue drains in Sherfield on Loddon and across Hampshire
Being a village, Sherfield on Loddon shares its vans nearby areas — Spanish Green, Hartley Wespall — all the way through RG postcodes and the wider area beyond. Quote a postcode that starts RG27 0, and the van gets there fastest.
No need to shift your car. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street close to War Memorial, a lay-by on the way to Childrens play area, a driveway. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Bullsdown Iron Age Fort.
The short version for Sherfield on Loddon drivers
Pour no AdBlue until you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere in Hampshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — so leave the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103.