Woodfalls: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and your ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, done just where the vehicle sits around Woodfalls, is normally all it takes if found before the motor runs. Reading in advance? In that case the rest explains how it comes about and how to stop it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Many modern diesels around Redlynch, like those in Woodfalls, carry on two fluids; your engine takes just your diesel. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There is a filler on each tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the arrangement on a lot of motors. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. Filling the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less commonly. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
Woodfalls: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
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 Whiteshoot before work, or in the car park outside Woodfalls Inn on the way home.
Unfamiliar vehicles come second, as well. Hire cars, new cars and company vehicles put their fillers in new places, and the hand reaches for the cap it 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. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Woodfalls or out in North Charford.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Lover or a forecourt in Woodfalls, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually isn't. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- On many vehicles, the size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Open the filler flap and look for a label — plenty of motors show which belongs in each filler right there.
- The handbook shows where it is when the filler is not next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Dean? Ask the person who drove it last before you set off, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
Wherever in Hampshire the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Stop somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Hale Lane.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you've located the filler and read it.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Discover at the second or third stage that the bottle went into the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Do not go on to step five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Woodfalls?
The short order of things, beginning with not starting your motor. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Esso, Harvest Energy or any forecourt will usually help pushing your car clear when you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Woodfalls.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. The next junction means the place to come off if you're on the M27, under 10 miles from Woodfalls. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Salisbury, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Woodfalls.
When our technicians turn up around Woodfalls, what occurs?
By Hale Primary School, close to Hale Village Hall or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, we come to it. Our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it has run, because those replies decide this work and our price. During the phone call itself, you hear our quote — ahead of dispatch.
After that: draining, then a thorough flush of the entire system. 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 counts more here than with petrol. Filter flushed or, if needed, replaced; fresh diesel in; and then a check of the vehicle. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, have a look at your insurance documents; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Woodfalls itself
Woodfalls is a small village in Hampshire, situated inland at an elevation of 112 metres, approximately 7 miles from Salisbury. Woodfalls has a population of around 572 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Woodfalls is located near other small settlements such as North Charford and Hatchet Green, and is about 78 miles from London.
AdBlue drains round Woodfalls, and Hampshire beyond
Hatchet Green and Bohemia are among the towns near Woodfalls, a rural village, that the same teams cover, over SP postcodes. Quickest of all: give a SP5 2 postcode to our van.
Your car stays put. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Hale Purley, a lay-by on the way to Redlynch Playing Fields, a driveway. Guessing doesn't help at the back of St Mary, close to a border, or somewhere hard to pin down; phone and check.
In short, for Woodfalls motorists
Tip nothing till 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 and call 0333 366 0103.