East Moulsecoomb: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave your engine and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Caught before the engine runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around East Moulsecoomb. Here before the event? Then what follows explains how it happens and how to prevent it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads around East Moulsecoomb and Coldean carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to fresh them, from a separate tank.
There is a filler on every tank. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on many vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. Far less frequently, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. The mistake grows in the gap between the two.
East Moulsecoomb: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
Carelessness rarely causes it. What does is three things coming up at once.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from your car, and running dry leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Appledore Road, or at Ruby on the way home that evening.
Next, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old car — since a rental car, a new motor or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
Nothing halts the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's seconds, whether out in North Moulsecoomb or bang in the heart of East Moulsecoomb.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you pour anything, on a drive in Bevendean or a forecourt around East Moulsecoomb.
- Check the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue ones are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally are not.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of cars show which goes in which inlet right there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler is if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Moulsecoomb.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Anywhere in East Sussex the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Stop somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Goodwood Way.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you have located your filler and read it.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, make sure it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Shut the cap, and look once more — confirm your diesel cap stayed closed throughout. After that, start the car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Leave out step five altogether.
East Moulsecoomb: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The short order of things, beginning with not starting your engine. Keep your ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself runs the pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the staff to help push your car clear of the pump if you're at a forecourt — the BP, the Asda or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in East Moulsecoomb.
When the motor has been run by now, stop somewhere safe then turn it off. Come off the M23 — under 25 miles out of East Moulsecoomb — at the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across East Moulsecoomb is less work than a trip of under 3 miles to Brighton and Hove, and so say.
When our engineers arrive around East Moulsecoomb, what takes place?
We come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Moulsecoomb Primary School, close to St George's Hall or on your own driveway. The answers determine this work and the price, and so we ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. The price is given on the call, before any van leaves.
The fuel system is then rinsed thoroughly, after your tank is drained. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes out unaided. That is why it counts more. After your filter is cleaned — or replaced, if needed — fresh diesel goes in, and then your car is tested. Next we start it and check it runs properly before we leave.
If the engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About East Moulsecoomb
East Moulsecoomb is a suburban area situated on the outskirts of Brighton and Hove, with its residential streets and semi-detached houses characterising the local landscape. East Moulsecoomb sits at an elevation of 72 metres, close to the South East coast of England, and is approximately 2.6 miles from the city centre of Brighton and Hove. East Moulsecoomb is part of the larger Moulsecoomb area, which includes neighbouring North Moulsecoomb and other nearby places.
AdBlue drains around East Moulsecoomb, and East Sussex beyond
Throughout BN postcodes, the teams covering East Moulsecoomb — a residential suburb — work the nearby spots too, Moulsecoomb and Moulsecomb among them. Quickest of all: give a BN2 4 postcode to our van.
The car remains put. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Hog Plantation, a side street near Moulsecoomb Community Leisure Centre: our technicians drain the car where it sits. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Hodshrove Farm.
The short version for East Moulsecoomb people
Pour nothing till you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it sits, anywhere in East Sussex.