AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Petworth: How It Happens and How to Prevent It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and your ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Normally, when your motor hasn't run, it's emptied and thoroughly flushed where your vehicle sits around Petworth. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
No single liquid but two: that's what many newer diesels around Petworth and Gorehill run, with diesel feeding the motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot more place the two together behind one flap. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less regularly. The mistake lives in that gap.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Petworth: how it happens
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Middle Street before work, or in the car park at The Star on the way home.
Then your car is new. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip after it has started. Byworth or the middle of Petworth: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt around Petworth or a driveway over in Tillington. Seconds, no more.
- Position can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue ones are often blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Check for it.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check when you collect a rental or company car — at Pulborough's car park, perhaps — not when the light appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
When the light comes on, wherever around West Sussex, use this routine.
- Not in a rush on the side of New Street, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park and switch off first.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — once you've located the filler and read it.
- Both under a single flap? So make sure the cap on the diesel side stays closed before raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the car, close the cap and check a second time that the diesel cap never came off.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop right there. Never carry on to step five.
Petworth: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Don't start the motor: that is how the short order of things starts. Leave your ignition off as well, since on many diesels switching it on by itself runs the fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the Harvest Energy or the Scammell's Garage, ask the attendants to help roll your car clear of the pump. At home around Petworth? So the car stays where it is.
When the motor has run by now, pull over somewhere safe and turn it off. Leave the Waterlooville Bypass — under 25 miles out of Petworth — at the next junction. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Chichester, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Petworth.
What occurs when we turn up around Petworth
Anywhere your car came to rest, be it by Petworth Cof E Primary School, near Petworth Cottage Museum or on your own drive, our van travels to it. Both the work and our quote depend on three replies — which fluid, what amount, and whether it has run — so our engineers ask. You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. With AdBlue that matters 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. A test is at the end: before that, fresh diesel is added, and the filter is cleaned or changed if necessary. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
If the engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Petworth itself
Petworth is a small town in West Sussex, situated inland at an elevation of 59 metres, approximately 41.6 miles south-west of London. Petworth lies near the South Downs National Park, close to the cities of Chichester and the surrounding villages of Byworth, Flathurst, and Hampers Green. Petworth has a population of around 2592 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Petworth is characterised by its rural setting and historic architecture.
AdBlue drains across West Sussex, Petworth included
Flathurst and Hampers Green are among the places around Petworth, a town, that the same vans cover, throughout GU postcodes. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting GU28 0.
No need to move the car. Wherever it sits — beside Petworth Library, on a lay-by en route to Walled Garden, on a drive — that's where it gets emptied. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Petworth United Reform Church.
For Petworth people, the short version
Pour nothing until you've read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Keep the car switched off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, throughout West Sussex.