How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Lumley
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Lumley. Not happened yet? Below, the rest of the page explains the why it happens and the ways to avoid it for good.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Diesel feeds your motor — but plenty of current diesels driven around Lumley and Breach hold another fluid as well. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Some motors put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place the two together behind one flap. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up constantly. The AdBlue side is filled far less frequently, normally from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in the gap that the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur in Lumley?
Carelessness rarely causes it. What does is three things lining up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car 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 driveway off A27 before work, or in the car park at The Railway Inn on the way home.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — yet a hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That is a second thing: a new vehicle.
A spout-topped bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, once begun, carries on. Whether it occurs in Emsworth or the middle of Lumley, it's the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Whether a Lumley forecourt or a driveway over in Prinsted, spend a few seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- Position can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally don't.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — plenty of motors show what goes in which inlet just there.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver knows. Check as you collect a hire car or company car — at Emsworth's car park, perhaps — not when the warning appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
The day the light comes on, wherever in West Sussex, use this routine.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, motor stopped, and never in a rush beside Westbourne Close at the roadside.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, but it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the vehicle on.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Never go on to stage five.
Lumley: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting your engine. Leave your ignition off as well, since on many diesels it alone runs your pump. Thinning it with more diesel won't work, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom rather than blending — and that is where the fuel is drawn from.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it is the Harvest Energy or the Shell, ask the attendants to help roll the car away from the pump. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Lumley.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your motor has already run. Leave the A3(M) — under 5 miles out of Lumley — at the first junction. Mileage matters — a short hop across Lumley is a smaller job than heading under 10 miles to Chichester — so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our engineers get there around Lumley, what happens?
The van reaches the car wherever it stopped — your own driveway, beside Emsworth Memorial Garden, or by St James Church of England Controlled Primary School. Our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run, because the replies decide the work and the quote. That price is given on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Emptying your tank comes next, then a full flush of the fuel system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Before leaving, we start it and check that it's running correctly.
Unrun vehicles mostly need a half-hour visit from the moment we arrive. The kit is safe on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. It's worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Lumley, for a moment
Lumley is a small suburban area on the coast of West Sussex, situated near the city of Chichester and close to neighbouring communities such as Emsworth and Westbourne. Lumley sits at a low elevation of around 11 metres above sea level, looking out over the coastal landscape. Lumley has a population of approximately 2570 people, living in predominantly terraced housing. Lumley is located about 57 miles from London, making it a commuter base for some residents.
AdBlue drains about Lumley, and West Sussex beyond
Lumley is a residential suburb, and our vans that cover it also work the places around it, New Brighton and Westbourne among them, across the PO postcode area. Quote a postcode that starts PO10 8, and the van gets there quickest.
Shifting the car is not necessary. The drain takes place on the spot, whether a drive, a road by Emsworth Museum, or a lay-by towards Brook Meadow. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Emsworth Library, ring and ask instead of guessing.
In short, for Lumley people
Always, the cap; after that, the pour. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere in West Sussex, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — and so leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103.