Mile Oak: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Leave your engine and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Normally, when your motor has not turned, it is emptied and thoroughly rinsed where your car sits in Mile Oak. The rest of this page covers why it occurs and how to ensure it does not — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds the engine — yet plenty of current diesels driven around Mile Oak and Southwick hold a second fluid as well. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to fresh it, from its own tank.
There is a filler on every tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the layout on a lot of vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less commonly. The mistake grows in that gap between the two.
Mile Oak: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
It's seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Hurry follows from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off Chalky Road, or heading home in the car park outside The Mile Oak.
Then the vehicle is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, after begun, carries on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Mile Oak or out in Portslade Village.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Hangleton or a forecourt in Mile Oak, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- The size. On plenty of motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — plenty of motors mark what belongs in which filler just there.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Fishersgate, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
For the day the warning comes on — wherever you are across East Sussex — a simple routine to use.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Stanley Avenue South.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud while unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Finish once that tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour slowly using its built-in spout.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Discover at the second or third step that the bottle went into the diesel tank? That's where you stop. Don't go on to stage five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Mile Oak?
Do not start your motor: that is how the short order of things starts. Keep the ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels switching it on alone runs your pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the staff to help push the vehicle clear of the petrol pump if you are at a forecourt — the Texaco, the Tesco or somewhere else. Your own drive in Mile Oak is where it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. The next exit is the place to leave when you're on the M23, under 25 miles from Mile Oak. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Brighton and Hove, under 5 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Mile Oak.
Mile Oak: what occurs when our engineers get there
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Mile Oak Primary School, near Church of the Good Shepherd or on your own drive. Both the work and our price depend on three answers — which liquid, which quantity, and whether it has run — so our engineers ask. Nobody heads out before you have had our quote by phone.
Your system is then flushed thoroughly, once that tank is drained. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. After the filter is cleaned — or renewed, where needed — fresh diesel goes in, and finally the car gets tested. Then our engineers fire it up and check it runs correctly before we leave.
Unstarted vehicles usually need a half-hour job from the moment we arrive. The equipment is safe on a live filling station, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. No money in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Mile Oak itself
Mile Oak is a suburban area in East Sussex, situated on the coast near Brighton and Hove. Mile Oak sits at an elevation of 34 metres, looking out over the English Channel, and is located close to neighbouring communities such as Portslade Village and Portslade-by-Sea. Mile Oak has a population of around 7490 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Mile Oak is also within commuting distance of London, being approximately 45.6 miles away.
AdBlue drains about Mile Oak, and East Sussex beyond
Being a residential suburb, Mile Oak shares its vans nearby areas — Portslade-by-Sea, Southern Cross — all the way through BN postcodes and the wider area around them. A postcode starting BN41 2 gets our van to you fastest.
Your car stays where it is. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Southwick Hill Recreation Ground, a side street near Foredown Tower: we drain the vehicle where it stands. Guessing doesn't help behind South Street Studio, on a border, or anywhere awkward to describe; ring and ask.
Mile Oak people: the short version
Tip no AdBlue until you've read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, throughout East Sussex.