St Johns: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Stop here for a moment when the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Around St Johns, finding it before your motor runs normally leaves a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder 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
Many newer diesels around Friars Gate, as well as St Johns, run on two fluids; your motor takes just the diesel. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where a spray cleans the gas.
There's a filler for every tank. Some motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have both side by side behind one flap. Diesel goes in on each forecourt visit, again and again. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think which cap it needs. That gap is where the error lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around St Johns: how it takes place
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off St. John's Road before work, or in the car park outside The Coopers Arms on the way home.
Unfamiliar motors are second, too. Hire cars, new motors and company cars put their fillers differently, and habit goes for the cap it used on the old one.
Third, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in just as easily, and after the pour starts, nothing stops it. Whether it happens in Crowborough Warren or the middle of St Johns, it's the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Whether a St Johns forecourt or a drive over in Steel Cross, take a couple of seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- Read the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually are not.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the filler flap and look for a label — plenty of vehicles show what belongs in which filler right there.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Crowborough? Ask the person who drove it last before you set off, not once the light goes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around East Sussex that is.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Boxgate.
- 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 remains on. Where the two share a flap, make sure it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Discover at the second or third step that the bottle went in the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Never carry on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in St Johns?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the motor. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch it on. Filling up with diesel won't weaken it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of the tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Morrisons, Esso or any forecourt will normally help pushing your car away if you ask. At home in St Johns? So the car stays put.
Already started? Stop once it is sensible, then switch off. On the M23, under 15 miles from St Johns, that means the next exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Brighton and Hove, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across St Johns.
St Johns: what takes place when our technicians turn up
The van reaches your car anywhere it stopped — your own drive, beside St John's Church, or by St John's Church of England Primary School. Our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, because those replies decide this work and our price. You get that quote on the phone, before anyone sets off.
The fuel system is then cleaned thoroughly, after the tank is cleared. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither washes out by itself. Hence it matters more. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. We do not leave until it has been started and is running correctly.
With pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where your motor has not run take about half an hour once our technicians are there. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About St Johns itself
St Johns is a suburban area in East Sussex, situated inland at an elevation of 162 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. St Johns lies near the towns of Crowborough and Brighton and Hove, with nearby areas including Crowborough Warren and Mardens Hill. St Johns is home to a population of approximately 1652 residents, and is located about 20.8 miles from Brighton and Hove. St Johns is also within commuting distance to London, being around 32.8 miles from the capital.
AdBlue drains about St Johns, and East Sussex beyond
Throughout TN postcodes, our teams that cover St Johns — a residential suburb — work the nearby places too, Crowborough and Mardens Hill included. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting TN6 1.
No need to shift your car. Draining happens right there, be it a drive, a road near St. John's Church Hall, or a lay-by towards New Mill Wood. Guessing doesn't help at the back of Forest Fold Baptist Chapel, on a boundary, or somewhere awkward to pin down; ring and ask.
The short version for St Johns drivers
Read the cap before you pour. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere across East Sussex, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — and so leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.