Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Steel Cross: Why It Happens
Leave your engine and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain plus a thorough flush, done right where the vehicle sits around Steel Cross, is normally all it needs when caught before your motor runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Plenty of modern diesels around Blackness, as well as Steel Cross, run on two liquids; your motor takes just the diesel. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas and cleans it.
Each tank has its own filler. Many of cars share a single flap for both, while others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is topped up 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 far less frequently. That gap is where the slip lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place around Steel Cross
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the vehicle, and running dry leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Eridge Road, perhaps at The Boars Head Inn on the way home that evening.
Then, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old vehicle — since a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not.
No part halts the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it takes place in Poundfield or the middle of Steel Cross, it is the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A couple of seconds is all these take — so check them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Crowborough Warren or a forecourt in Steel Cross.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually is not. Read it instead of going by position.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of motors carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it is when the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver knows. Check when you collect a hire car or company car — at Crowborough's car park, perhaps — not once the warning appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Anywhere around East Sussex the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Turn off after you park — level ground, motor off, and not in a rush by Manor Place on the verge.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you have located your filler and read the cap.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both share a flap, confirm it's shut before the bottle comes up.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Stage five is out.
Steel Cross: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your engine. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the vehicle on. Topping up with diesel will not dilute it: instead, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, right where fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — BP, Esso or another — the attendants will normally help push your car clear, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway in Steel Cross.
Already started? Pull over once it is safe, then turn off. Steel Cross sits under 15 miles from the M23; there, take the next junction. 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 Steel Cross.
What happens when our technicians turn up in Steel Cross
Our van comes to the vehicle anywhere it has come to rest — your own drive, near Crowborough Leisure Centre, or outside Sir Henry Fermor Church of England Primary School. Which liquid got in, the amount, and if it ran: our engineers ask since those answers decide the work and price. You get that price by phone, before anybody sets off.
Draining your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the fuel system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither clears away unaided. That is why it counts more. After the fuel filter is cleaned — or replaced, where required — clean diesel is added, and then your car is tested. Your engine is started next and checked to make sure it runs properly, all before our engineers go.
If your engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. The insurer will ask for an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both once the job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. It is worth checking your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Steel Cross itself
Steel Cross is a suburban area in East Sussex, situated near the River Uck and characterised by detached housing. Steel Cross sits at an elevation of around 160 metres, overlooking the surrounding countryside. Steel Cross is located near other local places such as Poundfield, Boarshead, and Crowborough, and is within commuting distance of Brighton and Hove. Steel Cross has a population of approximately 1227 residents.
AdBlue drains across East Sussex, Steel Cross included
Steel Cross is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Boarshead and Crowborough among them, across the TN postcode area. A postcode starting TN6 2 gets our van to you fastest.
The vehicle stays put. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street close to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a lay-by on the way to Silver Jubilee Recreation Ground, a driveway. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of The Original Factory Shop, ring and ask instead of guessing.
In short, for Steel Cross drivers
First, the cap; then, the pour. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere across East Sussex, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway — and so leave it off and ring 0333 366 0103.