AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Woodmansterne: Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Woodmansterne. Here before the event? Then the rest explains how it comes about and how to prevent it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels in Banstead, like those in Woodmansterne, carry on two liquids; the motor takes just your diesel. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to clean them, from a separate tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the arrangement on a lot of cars. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. The AdBlue side is filled far less commonly, usually from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank take place around Woodmansterne?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
On a driveway off Chipstead Way before work, or in the car park at The Woodman on the way home: that is where the rushed top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car tells you, and once it's gone, limp mode follows.
Then, your hand goes for the cap it knew on the old vehicle — since a hire car, a new car 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 once it has started. It takes seconds, whether out in Clock House or bang in the centre of Woodmansterne.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Woodmansterne forecourt or a drive out in Chipstead, take a couple of seconds on these before any goes in.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually don't.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside your fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Look for it.
- The handbook says where it is when the filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Chipstead, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
The day the light comes on, wherever across Surrey, use this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Rectory Lane.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave it on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Never go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Woodmansterne?
Short list, then. Top of that: your motor stays off. Keep the ignition off too, since on plenty of diesels switching it on alone starts the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
At a forecourt — Esso, BP or another — the staff will usually help push your car away, when you ask. Your own driveway in Woodmansterne is where it stays.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Woodmansterne sits under 3 miles from the M23; there, take the next junction. A short hop across Woodmansterne is a smaller job than a run towards Westminster, under 15 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
When we turn up in Woodmansterne, what occurs?
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Woodmansterne Primary School, close to St. Peter's Church Hall or on your own driveway. We ask what went in, about how much, and if it's run, since the replies settle this work and our quote. The quote is given over the phone, before any van leaves.
Next: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Much more than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: crystals form, certain metals corrode, and none of it clears out on its own, no matter how long it is left. Testing is last: before that, clean diesel is added, and the fuel filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. After that we start it and make sure it runs smoothly before we leave.
If your engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Nothing upfront; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Woodmansterne, for a moment
Woodmansterne is a small village in Surrey, situated inland at an elevation of 126 metres, approximately 12.8 miles from London. Woodmansterne has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are predominant, and the village is close to nearby places such as Clock House and Little Woodcote. Woodmansterne remains a quiet residential community with a population of around 1043 people.
AdBlue drains around Woodmansterne and across Surrey
Woodmansterne is a rural village, and our teams that cover it also work the places around it, Little Woodcote and Coulsdon among them, across the SM postcode area. Fastest of all: give a SM7 3 postcode to the van.
No need to move the vehicle. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to St Peters Church, a lay-by on the way to Woodmansterne Recreation Ground - The Park, a driveway. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Woodmansterne Village Hall, ring and ask instead of guessing.
The short version for Woodmansterne drivers
First, the cap; then, the tip. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it waits, anywhere around Surrey.