Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Primmers Green: Why It Occurs
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and your ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Primmers Green. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Plenty of newer diesels in Woods Green, as well as Primmers Green, carry on two liquids; the motor gets only the diesel. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler on each tank. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled constantly. Far less frequently, the AdBlue side gets filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank happen in Primmers Green?
It's seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Primmers Green before work, or in the car park outside White Hart on the way home.
Next, the hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old car — because a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the pour after it has started. It takes a few seconds, be it out in Sparrows Green or right in the centre of Primmers Green.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Durgates or a forecourt in Primmers Green, check these. They take a few seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- Look inside the fuel flap: many motors carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler is if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Wadhurst, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
When the light goes on, wherever in East Sussex, use this routine.
- Turn off after you park — level ground, motor off, and never in a rush beside Cousley Wood Road at the roadside.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — once you have located your filler and read it.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave it on.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then look again — confirm your diesel filler stayed closed the whole time. After that, start the car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Step five is out.
Primmers Green: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your motor. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the car on. Thinning it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the base rather than mixing — and that's where your fuel is sucked from.
Ask the attendants to help push the car away from the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Wadhurst Service Station, the BP or anywhere else. If you're on your own drive around Primmers Green, leave the car where it stands.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the engine has already run. Come off the M26 — under 25 miles out of Primmers Green — at the next junction. A short hop across Primmers Green is a smaller job than a run towards Brighton and Hove, under 50 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
What occurs when we turn up in Primmers Green
Wherever the vehicle came to rest, be it outside Wadhurst CofE Primary School and Nursery, beside Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul or on your own drive, the van comes to it. Which fluid was put in, the quantity, and if it ran: our technicians ask because the replies set both work and price. Nobody heads out until you have heard our price by phone.
Emptying your tank comes next, then a full flush of the system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Your engine is fired up next and checked to make sure it runs smoothly, all before our technicians go.
If your engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents your insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. It is worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Primmers Green itself
Primmers Green is a suburban area in East Sussex, situated inland at an elevation of 167 metres, and is located near Sparrows Green, Pell Green, and Wadhurst. Primmers Green has a population of approximately 1478 residents and predominantly features detached housing. Primmers Green is within commuting distance of London, being around 36 miles from the capital, and is also close to the city of Brighton and Hove, which is about 27 miles away.
AdBlue drains across East Sussex, Primmers Green included
Primmers Green is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the places around it, Pell Green and Wadhurst among them, across the TN postcode area. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting TN5 6.
The vehicle does not need to move. The drain happens on the spot, be it a driveway, a street by Wadhurst Village Hall, or a layby towards Little Pell Wood. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Wadhurst Library.
Primmers Green motorists: the short version
Read the cap before you tip. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it wherever it is, anywhere in East Sussex: switch it off and ring 0333 366 0103.