Titchfield Park: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then set this page down a moment, leave the ignition and motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Titchfield Park. The rest of this page covers why it happens and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many newer diesels around Titchfield, like those in Titchfield Park, carry on two liquids; your engine takes only the diesel. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust gas to clean it.
There's a filler on each tank. Plenty of motors have a single flap for the two, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at each filling station call-out, week in, week out. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less frequently. The mistake grows in the gap between the two.
Titchfield Park: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things lining up at once.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the car, and letting it run out means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Segensworth Road, perhaps outside Sir Joseph Paxton on the way home after work.
Next, your hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old car — because a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip after it has started. Segensworth or the heart of Titchfield Park: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt in Titchfield Park or a driveway over in Park Gate. A few seconds, that's all.
- Read the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- On plenty of cars, size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Swanwick, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Hampshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Grevillea Avenue, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off properly.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — after you've found the filler and read it.
- The two behind one flap? So confirm the cap on your diesel side stays closed before lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and look once more — confirm your diesel cap remained closed the whole time. Only then, start the car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Never carry on to stage five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Titchfield Park?
Brief list, then. Top of it: the engine stays unstarted. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment your ignition goes on — so keep it off. Topping up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of that tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help push your car away from the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Shell, the BP or anywhere else. If you are on your own drive in Titchfield Park, leave the car where it stands.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. On the M27, under a mile from Titchfield Park, that means the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Titchfield Park is less work than a run of under 10 miles towards Southampton, so tell us.
Titchfield Park: what takes place when we arrive
We come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside St Anthony's Catholic Primary School, near St John or on your own drive. We ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has run, since those answers settle the work and our price. The quote is given over the phone, before any van leaves.
Your system is then flushed thoroughly, once your tank is drained. 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 matters more here than with petrol. A test is last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is cleaned or replaced as needed. We do not go until it has been started and is running properly.
With pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor hasn't run need about half an hour once our engineers are there. Your insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. It is worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Titchfield Park itself
Titchfield Park is a coastal locality in Hampshire, situated near the cities of Southampton and Portsmouth. Titchfield Park sits at an elevation of 41 metres, close to the Solent coast and within commuting distance of major urban centres. Titchfield Park is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting the area's residential nature. Titchfield Park is also near several other localities, including Segensworth and Locks Heath.
Titchfield Park and Hampshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Over PO postcodes, our teams that cover Titchfield Park — a coastal area — work the nearby places too, Locks Heath and Lee Ground among them. Give a postcode beginning PO15 5, and our van arrives quickest.
The car stays where it is. Draining takes place on the spot, whether a drive, a street by Titchfield Festival Theatre, or a layby on the way to Kite's Croft. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Titchfield Abbey.
In short, for Titchfield Park motorists
Tip nothing till you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave the car off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere around Hampshire.