How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bramber
Pause reading for a moment if your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then phone 0333 366 0103. Normally, when your engine has not turned, it is drained and thoroughly purged where the car sits in Bramber. Here in advance? Then the rest explains how it happens and what to prevent it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Not one fluid but two: that is how plenty of modern diesels near Bramber and Castle Town run, with diesel for the engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
There is a filler for each tank. Many of cars share a single flap for both, whereas others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. Much less frequently, the AdBlue side is topped up — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
Bramber: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Hurry follows from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a driveway off Roman Road, or on the way home in the car park at The Castle Inn Hotel.
New-to-you vehicles are second, too. Hire cars, new motors and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, after begun, keeps on. It takes a few seconds, whether out in Steyning or right in the centre of Bramber.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these first, on a forecourt around Bramber or a drive over in Coombes. Seconds, that's all.
- Read the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally are not.
- On plenty of motors, size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on many motors. Check for it.
- The handbook says which it lives if your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Lancing, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
For the day the light comes on — anywhere it is across West Sussex — a routine to use.
- Stop somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Castle Close.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It seems daft. It works.
- The two under a single flap? So make sure the lid on your diesel side stays closed before lifting the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then look again — confirm your diesel filler stayed shut the whole time. After that, start your car.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? Then stop just there. Don't carry on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Bramber already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. The fuel pump starts on many diesels as soon as the ignition goes on — so leave it off. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the BP or the Shell, ask the staff to help roll the car clear of the petrol pump. Your own drive around Bramber is where it should stay.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. The next junction means where to come off when you're on the M23, under 15 miles from Bramber. Mileage counts — a quick hop across Bramber makes a smaller job than heading under 10 miles to Brighton and Hove — so say roughly how far it went.
When our technicians get there around Bramber, what happens?
Outside Upper Beeding Primary School, near Bramber Castle or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and if it has run, since those answers determine the work and the quote. No one sets off before you've heard our quote over the phone.
Next: draining, then a thorough flush of the entire system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of it clears away by itself. Hence it matters more. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Your engine is started next and tested to be sure it runs properly, all before our technicians go.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour after we arrive, provided your engine has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a live forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. It is worth checking your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Bramber, for a moment
Bramber is a village situated on the banks of the River Adur in West Sussex, with a low elevation of around 9 metres above sea level. Bramber lies near the South Downs and is close to the towns of Steyning and Upper Beeding. Bramber has a mix of old and new housing, but detached homes are the predominant type in the village. Bramber is within commuting distance of Brighton and Hove, which is approximately 8.7 miles away.
Bramber and West Sussex: AdBlue drains across the area
Upper Beeding and Botolphs are among the places around Bramber, a village, that the same teams cover, throughout BN postcodes. A postcode starting BN44 3 gets our van to you fastest.
Your car doesn't need to move. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to St Nicholas, a lay-by on the way to Clays Field, a drive. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of The Steyning Centre.
The short version for Bramber people
Always, the cap; after that, the pour. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, wherever around West Sussex: switch it off then ring 0333 366 0103.