Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Woodcote
Pause reading a minute if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Around Woodcote, finding it before your engine runs normally means draining and a full flush where it stands. Here before the event? Then the rest explains why it comes about and what to stop it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels in Epsom, as well as Woodcote, run on two fluids; the motor takes only the 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 comes with one filler of its own. Plenty of motors share a single flap for the two, whereas others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled on every filling station call-out, again and again. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. That gap is where the mistake lives.
Woodcote: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things lining up at once.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Ashley Road before work, or in the car park at Rubbing House on the way home.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand hits for the cap it would have 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 pour after it has started. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Woodcote or out in Langley Vale.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Nork or a forecourt around Woodcote.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- On plenty of cars, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Open the flap and check for a label — plenty of cars mark which belongs in each inlet just there.
- The handbook shows which it lives when the filler isn't next to your 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 Tattenham Corner, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
When the light goes on, wherever in Surrey, follow this routine.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time in hand — not rushing on the side of Langley Vale Road.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It seems silly. It works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the car, shut the cap and check again that your diesel cap never came off.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop right there. Leave out stage five altogether.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Woodcote already?
Do not start the motor: that is how the short order of things starts. The fuel pump runs on many diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — and so leave it off. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
Ask the attendants to help push your car away from the petrol pump if you are at a forecourt — the Texaco, the BP or somewhere else. If you're on your own driveway around Woodcote, leave the vehicle where it sits.
Already run? Pull over when it's safe, then turn off. The next junction means where to leave when you are on the M25, under 3 miles from Woodcote. Distance counts — a quick hop across Woodcote makes a smaller job than driving under 15 miles towards Westminster — so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we get there around Woodcote, what takes place?
Outside The Vale Primary School and Nursery, near View Point or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our engineers come to it. We ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it's run, since those answers decide this work and the price. During the phone call itself, you are told the price — before dispatch.
The system is then cleaned thoroughly, after that tank is emptied. 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 that counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. Testing comes at the end: before that, fresh diesel is added, and the filter is flushed or changed as needed. We don't go until it has been fired up and is running properly.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine has not run need roughly half an hour after we arrive. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. While we travel, take a look at your policy; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Woodcote itself
Woodcote is a small suburban area in Surrey, situated inland at an elevation of 117 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Woodcote lies approximately 14.5 miles from London and is close to nearby places such as Langley Vale and Epsom Downs. Woodcote has a population of around 720 residents and is characterized by its quiet, residential atmosphere. Woodcote is also near Great Burgh, which adds to its local amenities.
Woodcote and Surrey: AdBlue drains across the area
Epsom Downs and Great Burgh are among the places near Woodcote, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, over KT postcodes. Quickest of all: quote a KT18 5 postcode to our van.
No need to shift your car. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Old Course, a side street close to Epsom Downs Racecourse: our engineers drain the vehicle where it sits. Guessing won't help behind Langley Vale Village Hall, on a boundary, or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and check.
In short, for Woodcote people
Pour nothing until you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around Surrey, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway — and so leave the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.