Blacklands: 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 engine and your ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out right where the vehicle sits around Blacklands, is usually what it needs if found before the engine runs. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page covers the reasons it happens and the how to avoid it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds your engine — but plenty of modern diesels driven round Blacklands and West Hill carry a second fluid too. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the gas to fresh them, from a separate tank.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled on each forecourt visit, week in, week out. Rarely filled, AdBlue usually goes in from a bottle, tipped by someone who has to stop and think which filler it needs. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs in Blacklands
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from your car, and running dry leads to limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Fearon Road, or outside The Lord Warden on the way home after work.
Then your car is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part stops the tip 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 takes place in St Helens Wood or the middle of Blacklands, it's the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Whether a Blacklands forecourt or a driveway out in Halton, spend a couple of seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually isn't. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- On plenty of motors, size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of motors carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says where it lives if your filler isn't 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 outside Ore, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
On the day the light appears — anywhere it is across East Sussex — a simple routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of Freshwater Avenue, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park then switch off properly.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you've found the filler and read the cap.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both share a flap, make sure it is shut before the bottle comes up.
- Finish when that tank fills or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip gently through its own spout.
- Before you start the car, close the cap and check a second time that the diesel cap never came off.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop just there. Stage five stays out.
Blacklands: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The short order of things, beginning with no starting the motor. Leave your ignition off too, since on many diesels it by itself starts the fuel pump. Thinning it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue settles to the base rather than blending — and that's where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help push the car clear of the pump if you're on a forecourt — the Morrisons, the Texaco or anywhere else. At home around Blacklands? So your car remains put.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. Leave the M20 — under 25 miles out of Blacklands — at the next exit. A short hop across Blacklands is a smaller job than a run towards Brighton and Hove, under 50 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival in Blacklands, and what happens next
Wherever your car has stopped, be it outside Ark Blacklands Primary Academy, near Christ Church, Blacklands or at home, the van travels to it. Both the work and the price depend on three replies — which liquid, which quantity, and if it has run — so our technicians ask. Nobody heads out until you've had the quote over the phone.
After that: a drain, then a full flush of the entire system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of it washes out unaided. Hence it counts more. Testing is last: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is cleaned or changed if necessary. Your engine is started next and checked to be sure it runs properly, all before we head off.
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 working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Nothing in advance; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. It's worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Blacklands and where it is
Blacklands is a suburban area in East Sussex, situated near the coast and approximately 21 metres above sea level. Blacklands lies within the larger urban area of Hastings, but is distinct from neighbouring areas like St Helens Wood and Broomgrove. Blacklands is characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, reflecting the typical residential development patterns of the South East region. Blacklands is also relatively close to major cities, with Brighton and Hove located about 31 miles away and London around 54 miles distant.
AdBlue drains around Blacklands, and East Sussex beyond
Blacklands is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Broomgrove and Broomsgrove among them, across the TN postcode area. A postcode starting TN34 2 gets our van to you fastest.
The car remains put. The drain takes place on the spot, whether a drive, a street by Elim Pentecostal Church, or a lay-by towards Pocket Park. Tricky to explain, like the back of Alexandra Bowls Club? By a border? Asking beats assuming, and so phone.
The short version for Blacklands motorists
Before you pour, read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it where it stands, wherever in East Sussex: keep the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.