Woodhatch: 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 the engine and your ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, done right where your vehicle sits around Woodhatch, is usually all it takes when caught before your engine runs. Nothing happened yet? Below, the rest of the page explains the reasons it occurs and the how to avoid it altogether.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads about Woodhatch and Sidlow carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to fresh it, from its own tank.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that's the arrangement on many cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in your boot instead. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less commonly, usually from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Woodhatch: how it takes place
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things lining up together.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the car, and running dry means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Baron's Way, or outside The Beehive on the way home that evening.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it occurs in Doversgreen or the middle of Woodhatch, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Woodhatch forecourt or a drive out in Reigate, take a couple of seconds over these before anything is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Look for it.
- Can't see it beside the diesel filler? Then look below the bonnet or in the boot — the owner's manual says which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask when you pick up a rental or fleet car — at Reigate's car park, say — not once the warning appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Surrey that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Hitchings Way.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — once you have located the filler and read it.
- The diesel cap stays on. When the two share a flap, confirm it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the diesel filler? That is where you stop. Never go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Woodhatch already?
Do not start the engine: that is how the short order of things begins. Keep the ignition off too, since on many diesels switching it on alone runs the pump. Thinning it with more diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the base rather than blending — and that's where your fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — Texaco, Shell or another — the staff will usually help push the car away, when you ask. If you're on your own drive in Woodhatch, leave the vehicle where it sits.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the engine has already run. Leave the M25 — under 3 miles out of Woodhatch — at the next exit. Distance counts — a quick hop across Woodhatch makes a smaller job than driving under 25 miles to Westminster — so say roughly how far it went.
What takes place when our technicians arrive around Woodhatch
Anywhere your car has stopped, whether by Dovers Green School, beside Sandcross Church or on your own drive, the van comes to it. Our engineers ask what got in, about how much, and if it has run, because those answers settle this work and our price. You get that quote on the phone, before anyone heads out.
Emptying the tank comes next, then a full flush of the fuel system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. The engine is started next and checked to make sure it runs correctly, all before our engineers head off.
With pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor hasn't run need about half an hour after our engineers are there. The 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. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Woodhatch and where it is
Woodhatch is a suburban area in Surrey, situated inland at an elevation of 59 metres, approximately 20 miles south of central London. Woodhatch is characterized by its semi-detached housing stock and is located near other local areas such as Doversgreen and South Park. Woodhatch has a population of around 5279 residents and is close to Mead Vale. Woodhatch is also near the larger urban area of Westminster, which is about 19.7 miles away.
Woodhatch and Surrey: AdBlue drains across the area
Being a residential suburb, Woodhatch shares its vans nearby places — South Park, Mead Vale — all the way across RH postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting RH2 8.
Your car stays where it is. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Hartswood Sports Ground, a side street close to YMCA: our engineers drain it where it sits. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Subud Hall.
For Woodhatch people, the short version
First, the cap; after that, the pour. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere in Surrey, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway — and so leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.