Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in West Wittering: Why It Happens
Stop here a minute if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, carried out right where the vehicle sits around West Wittering, is normally all it needs if caught before your engine runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Many modern diesels in West Itchenor, like those in West Wittering, carry on two fluids; the engine gets just the diesel. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of vehicles share a single flap for the two, while others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in at each forecourt call-out, week in, week out. Much less often, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. It is in that gap that the slip lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in West Wittering: how it takes place
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Locksash Close before work, or in the car park outside The Wittering on the way home.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the pour once it has started. Whether it occurs in Rookwood or the middle of West Wittering, it's the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Somerley or a forecourt around West Wittering, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — many motors mark which goes in which inlet just there.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Nutbourne, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
On the day the warning appears — anywhere you are around 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 Elms Lane.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It works.
- Both behind one flap? So make sure the cap on your diesel filler stays closed before raising the bottle.
- Stop once the tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; until then, tip gently through the built-in spout.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Step five stays out.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in West Wittering?
Don't start the motor: that is how the short order of things begins. Leave your ignition off too, because on plenty of diesels switching it on alone starts your fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is pulled from.
Ask the staff to help push the vehicle clear of the petrol pump if you are at a forecourt — the Shell, the JET or somewhere else. At home in West Wittering? So the vehicle remains put.
Where your engine has run by now, pull over safely and turn the vehicle off. The next exit is where to leave if you're on the Waterlooville Bypass, under 10 miles from West Wittering. A short hop across West Wittering is a smaller job than a run towards Chichester, under 10 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we turn up in West Wittering, what takes place?
Anywhere your car has stopped, whether outside West Wittering Parochial Church of England School, near West Wittering Memorial Hall or on your own drive, the van travels to it. Both the work and the price rest on three answers — what fluid, what amount, and if it's run — so our engineers ask. On the call itself, you are told our price — ahead of dispatch.
Then the tank is emptied and the fuel system flushed thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. Filter flushed or, where it must be, replaced; fresh diesel in; then a test of your vehicle. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
Unrun vehicles usually need a half-hour job after the moment we arrive. The kit is fine on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. Nothing in advance; you settle up on the day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. It is worth looking at your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About West Wittering itself
West Wittering is a small coastal village in West Sussex, situated on the Manhood Peninsula near the city of Chichester. West Wittering has a low elevation of around 6 metres above sea level and is surrounded by other nearby places such as Rookwood and East Wittering. West Wittering is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock and is located approximately 60 miles from London. West Wittering remains a quiet residential community with a population of around 823 people.
AdBlue drains across West Sussex, West Wittering included
East Wittering and Shipton Green are among the towns around West Wittering, a coastal village, that the same teams cover, over PO postcodes. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting PO20 8.
No need to shift the car. Draining takes place right there, be it a drive, a street near Sir Henry Royce, or a layby on the way to Wittering Football Club. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of St Peter and St Paul, West Wittering, ring and ask instead of assuming.
The short version for West Wittering people
First, the cap; after that, the tip. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it is, wherever around West Sussex: keep the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.