How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Sunnyside
Leave the engine and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. In Sunnyside, finding it before your engine turns normally leaves draining and a thorough flush where it stands. Not happened yet? Further down, the page covers the reasons it occurs and the how to avoid it altogether.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
No single fluid but two: that's how plenty of modern diesels near Sunnyside and Ashurst Wood carry, with diesel feeding your engine. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank has one filler of its own. Many of vehicles have a single flap for both, while others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, the diesel side gets filled all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less often, usually from a bottle, and usually by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the slip lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Sunnyside: how it occurs
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
On a driveway off Dunnings Road before work, or in the car park outside The Old Dunnings Mill on the way home: that's where the hurried top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car warns you, and once it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
Unfamiliar motors come next, too. Rentals, new vehicles and company vehicles put their fillers differently, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as readily, and after the tip starts, no part stops it. It's seconds, be it out in East Grinstead or right in the heart of Sunnyside.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A few seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Stonequarry or a forecourt around Sunnyside.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on many motors. Look for it.
- Cannot find it beside the diesel filler? Then look below the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook will say where.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park at East Grinstead? Check with whoever drove it last before you set off, not once the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
When the light comes on, wherever in West Sussex, use this routine.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, motor off, and never in a rush by Coronation Road on the verge.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, but it does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, confirm it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Discover at the second or third step that AdBlue went in the diesel tank? That's where you stop. Step five stays off limits.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Sunnyside already?
Short order, then. First: the engine remains unstarted. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
On a forecourt — Esso, JET or another — the attendants will usually help roll the vehicle clear, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive in Sunnyside.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next exit is the place to leave when you're on the M23, under 10 miles from Sunnyside. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Sunnyside is smaller a job than a run of under 25 miles towards Brighton and Hove, and so say.
When our engineers arrive in Sunnyside, what occurs?
The van reaches the car wherever it stopped — your own drive, beside Sunnyside Barn, or by The Meads Primary School. What fluid was put in, the amount, and whether it ran: our engineers ask because the answers set both work and price. That price comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
After that: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither washes out by itself. Hence it counts more. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. The motor is fired up next and checked to confirm it runs smoothly, all before our engineers leave.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor has not run need roughly half an hour after we are there. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. It is worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Sunnyside, briefly
Sunnyside is a suburban area in West Sussex, situated inland at an elevation of 89 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Sunnyside lies approximately 27.5 miles from London and 21 miles from the city of Brighton and Hove, placing it within commuting distance of both. Sunnyside is close to nearby places such as East Grinstead, Blackwell, and Baldwins Hill, and has a population of around 3314 residents. Sunnyside remains a residential community with a mix of local amenities and rural surroundings.
AdBlue drains across West Sussex, Sunnyside included
Being a residential suburb, Sunnyside shares its vans surrounding areas — Blackwell, Baldwins Hill — all the way through RH postcodes and the wider area beyond. Give a postcode that starts RH19 4, and the van gets there fastest.
Your car remains where it is. Anywhere it sits — beside East Grinstead Tennis, Squash & Racketball Club, in a lay-by heading to Ash Wood, at home — that is where it gets cleared. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In short, for Sunnyside motorists
First, the cap; after that, the pour. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it wherever it is, anywhere across West Sussex: switch the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.