How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Yateley
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then put this page aside for now, leave the ignition and motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Yateley. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
No single liquid but two: that's what many newer diesels near Yateley and Frogmore carry, with diesel feeding the engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
Every tank comes with a filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that's the layout on many motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in the boot instead. The diesel side is topped up at the petrol pump all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and usually by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in the gap that the slip happens.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Yateley
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
On a drive off Pond Croft before work, or in the car park at The Royal Oak heading home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car warns you, and if it is gone, limp mode kicks in.
The old car's filler is where the hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's a second factor: an unfamiliar motor.
Nothing halts the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It takes seconds, be it out in Cricket Hill or bang in the heart of Yateley.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Check these first, at a forecourt in Yateley or a driveway over in Little Sandhurst. Seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually is not. Read it instead of going by position.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Sandhurst? Ask the person who drove it last before leaving, rather than when the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Hampshire that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Reading Road.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — after you have found your filler and read it.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Stop when your tank fills or the bottle runs dry; before that, pour slowly using the own spout.
- Before starting the vehicle, close the cap and look again that the diesel cap was never opened off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Don't carry on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Yateley already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your motor. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — so keep it off. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
The attendants at Esso, Texaco or any forecourt will normally lend a hand to push the car clear if you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Yateley.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next exit is the place to leave if you're on the M3, under 3 miles from Yateley. A short hop across Yateley is a smaller job than a run towards Winchester, under 50 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival in Yateley, and what takes place next
Our van reaches your car anywhere it stopped — your own drive, beside Yateley WI Hall, or outside Cranford Park Church of England Primary School. We ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, since those answers settle the work and our price. That quote is given over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Then that tank is emptied and the fuel system cleaned thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and none of that clears away by itself. Hence it counts more. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. After that our engineers start the engine and check it runs correctly before leaving.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour once we arrive, as long as the motor hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a live forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Yateley and where it is
Yateley is a town situated in the north east of Hampshire, on the banks of the River Blackwater. Yateley sits at an elevation of 59 metres, with Cricket Hill to the north and Darby Green to the east. Yateley has a mix of housing types, but detached homes are predominant, and the town is located near the larger town of Sandhurst. Yateley is approximately 31.9 miles from London and 28.7 miles from Winchester, making it a commuter town for those working in the surrounding cities.
AdBlue drains around Yateley and across Hampshire
Darby Green and Sandhurst are among the places around Yateley, a riverside town, that the same vans cover, throughout GU postcodes. Fastest of all: give a GU46 7 postcode for our van.
Your car does not need to shift. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near St Peter's Church, a lay-by on the way to Church End Green, a drive. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Yateley War Memorial, ring and ask instead of guessing.
Yateley motorists: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it stands, anywhere in Hampshire.