Ancton: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Stop reading a minute if the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Usually, if your engine hasn't run, it's emptied and fully flushed where the vehicle sits in Ancton. The remainder of this page explains why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many modern diesels on the roads around Ancton and Burndell carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to fresh them, from a separate tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Other cars put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more have both together behind one flap. The diesel side is topped up at the petrol pump all the time. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. It's in the gap that the slip happens.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank happen around Ancton?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
Hurry follows from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off Kingsmead Road, or heading home in the car park at The Elmer.
Next, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old motor — because a rental car, a new car or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
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. It's seconds, whether in Middleton-on-Sea or right in the centre of Ancton.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Whether a Ancton forecourt or a driveway over in Atherington, take a few seconds over these before anything is poured in.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally aren't.
- Many cars fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Check inside the fuel flap: plenty of vehicles have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Can't find it next to your diesel inlet? Then check beneath the bonnet or inside the boot — the handbook will say which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Ford? Ask the person who drove it last before leaving, rather than once the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
When the light goes on, anywhere across West Sussex, use this routine.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of Ancton Lodge Lane.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap works — once you have found your filler and read it.
- The two behind one flap? Then confirm the lid on your diesel filler stays closed before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Before you start your car, close the cap and check again that the diesel cap was never came off.
Find at the second or third stage that the bottle went in the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Don't go on to step five.
Ancton: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The short order of things, beginning with no starting the motor. Keep the ignition off as well, because on many diesels switching it on by itself starts the pump. Filling up with diesel won't dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of that tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — Esso, Sainsbury's or another — the attendants will normally help roll your car away, when you ask. Your own drive around Ancton is where it should stay.
Where your engine has run already, stop somewhere safe then turn the car off. Ancton lies under 25 miles from the Waterlooville Bypass; there, use the first junction. Mileage counts — a quick hop across Ancton makes a smaller job than driving under 10 miles towards Chichester — so say about how far it went.
Our arrival around Ancton, and what happens next
Anywhere the car has stopped, be it by Bishop Tufnell CofE Primary School, Felpham, near St Nicholas Church or at home, our van travels to it. Both the work and the price depend on three answers — which fluid, what amount, and whether it has run — so we ask. The price comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
Draining your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and none of it clears out by itself. That is why it counts more. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Then our technicians fire it up and confirm it runs smoothly before leaving.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the engine hasn't run need roughly half an hour after our technicians arrive. Your insurer usually wants an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Ancton and where it is
Ancton is a coastal suburban area in West Sussex, situated near the cities of Chichester and Bognor Regis. Ancton lies close to the sea, with its elevation at around 4 metres, and is bordered by nearby places such as Middleton-on-Sea and Elmer. Ancton has a population of approximately 2523 people, predominantly living in detached housing. Ancton is located about 53 miles from London, making it a relatively accessible coastal community.
AdBlue drains across West Sussex, Ancton included
Elmer and Bilsham are among the towns around Ancton, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, throughout PO postcodes. A postcode starting PO22 6 gets our van to you fastest.
Your car doesn't need to move. The drain takes place right there, be it a drive, a road near Rock Defence Walls, or a lay-by on the way to Shrubbs Field. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Middleton Sports Club, ring and ask rather than assuming.
For Ancton drivers, the short version
Tip nothing till you have read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave it switched off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, throughout West Sussex.