How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Singleton
Pause here a minute when the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Around Singleton, finding it before your engine turns usually leaves draining and a full flush where it stands. Not happened yet? Below, the rest of the page explains the why it occurs and the how to prevent it altogether.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Many modern diesels around Cocking, as well as Singleton, run on two liquids; the engine gets just the diesel. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, and there a spray cleans the gas.
Each tank has its own filler. Some cars put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place both side by side behind one flap. Diesel goes in at every filling station call-out, week in, week out. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less often, normally from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake grows in the gap between them.
Singleton: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a drive off The Leys before work, or in the car park at The Partridge Inn on the way home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low the vehicle warns you, and once it's gone, limp mode follows.
Then your car is unfamiliar. 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.
Third, the bottle fits: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in just as easily, and once the tip starts, nothing halts it. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Singleton or out in Charlton.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Chilgrove or a forecourt in Singleton, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Check the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue ones are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually aren't.
- Plenty of vehicles give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of motors mark which belongs in each inlet just there.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask as you collect a hire car or company car — at Chichester's car park, perhaps — rather than once the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
For the day the light comes on — wherever it is across West Sussex — a simple routine to use.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of The Grove.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two share a flap, confirm it's closed before lifting the bottle.
- Stop when the tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; until then, tip gently using the built-in spout.
- Close the cap, and look again — making sure your diesel filler stayed shut throughout. Only then, start the vehicle.
Find during the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Don't go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Singleton already?
Don't start your engine: that's how the short order of things starts. Leave your ignition off as well, because on plenty of diesels it by itself starts the pump. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
Ask the staff to help push your car clear of the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Texaco, the Esso or somewhere else. If you're on your own driveway in Singleton, leave it where it stands.
Where your engine has been run by now, stop safely then turn the vehicle off. The next exit is where to come off when you're on the A3(M), under 15 miles from Singleton. About how far did it go? Hopping across Singleton is less a job than a run of under 10 miles towards Chichester, so tell us.
When our technicians get there around Singleton, what happens?
Our engineers come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Singleton CofE Primary School, near Singleton Village Hall or on your own driveway. The replies decide this work and our price, and so our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it has run. You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out.
Emptying the tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the fuel system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. A test comes last: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and your filter is flushed or changed if necessary. We do not go until it has been started and is running correctly.
Unrun cars mostly mean a half-hour visit after the moment we arrive. The equipment is fine on a live filling station, and hushed enough for a driveway after dark. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Singleton
Singleton is a small village in West Sussex, situated on the banks of the River Lavant, with a relatively low elevation of 62 metres. Singleton is surrounded by nearby villages such as Charlton, West Dean, and East Dean, and is located close to the city of Chichester. Singleton has a population of approximately 518 residents, who mostly live in semi-detached houses. Singleton is also within commuting distance to London, being around 49 miles away.
AdBlue drains in Singleton and across West Sussex
Over PO postcodes, the vans that cover Singleton — a village — work the surrounding places too, East Dean and West Dean among them. A postcode starting PO18 0 gets our van to you fastest.
The vehicle remains put. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Levin Down Clump, a side street near The Blessed Virgin Mary, Singleton: we drain the car where it sits. Assuming won't help behind St. Margaret’s Church, on a boundary, or somewhere awkward to describe; ring and check.
In short, for Singleton people
Tip nothing till you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere in West Sussex, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — and so leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103.