How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Findon
Leave your motor and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before the motor runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Findon. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Plenty of current diesels on the roads about Findon and Findon Valley carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler for each tank. Some cars put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place the two side by side behind one flap. Diesel goes in at every filling station visit, again and again. Far less often, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. It is in the gap that the slip lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens in Findon
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things coming up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off The Square before work, or in the car park outside The Gun Inn on the way home.
Next, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old vehicle — since a rental car, a new motor or a company car places the fillers where your last one did not.
No part stops the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It takes a few seconds, be it in Nepcote or bang in the centre of Findon.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Whether a Findon forecourt or a driveway out in Cote, take a few seconds over these before any is poured in.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue ones are often blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally do not.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — plenty of vehicles mark which goes in which filler just there.
- The handbook says where it is when your filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask as you collect a rental or fleet car — from Durrington-On-Sea's car park, perhaps — not once the warning appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — wherever it is across West Sussex — a routine to follow.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of School Hill.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, but it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. When both share a flap, confirm it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting your car, close the cap and look again that your diesel cap never came off.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't carry on to step five.
Findon: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Don't start the motor: that's where the short order of things begins. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch it on. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it's the BP or the Esso, ask the attendants to help push the car away from the pump. Your own driveway in Findon is the place it stays.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next exit means where to leave if you're on the M23, under 25 miles from Findon. A short hop across Findon is a smaller job than a run towards Brighton and Hove, under 15 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
Findon: what occurs when our engineers turn up
The van comes to the vehicle anywhere it stopped — your own drive, beside Findon Village Hall, or outside St John the Baptist CofE Primary School. Our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, because those replies decide this work and our quote. The quote comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Next: a drain, then a thorough flush of the entire system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither clears out unaided. That is why it matters more. Once the fuel filter has been cleaned — or renewed, where required — clean diesel is added, and finally your car gets tested. Next we fire it up and check it runs properly before we go.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the engine hasn't run take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Findon and where it is
Findon is a rural village in West Sussex, situated approximately 54 metres above sea level, and is located near the South Downs National Park. Findon lies inland, about 11.9 miles north of Brighton and Hove, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Nepcote, North End, and High Salvington. Findon has a population of around 1380 residents, who mostly live in detached housing. Findon is also within commuting distance to London, being about 45.8 miles away.
Findon and West Sussex: AdBlue drains across the area
Findon is a rural village, and our vans that cover it also work the towns around it, North End and High Salvington among them, across the BN postcode area. Quote a postcode beginning BN14 0, and the van gets there quickest.
Your car stays where it is. We drain it where it is — a side street near Saint John the Baptist, a lay-by on the way to Findon Cricket Club, a drive. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Neolithic Flint Mines.
In short, for Findon drivers
Always, the cap; after that, the pour. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it stands, anywhere across West Sussex: switch the car off and call 0333 366 0103.