Adisham: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Pause reading a minute if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, carried out right where your vehicle stands in Adisham, is usually all it needs when found before your motor runs. Nothing happened yet? Below, the rest of the page covers the reasons it occurs and the how to prevent it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Plenty of modern diesels in Aylesham, as well as Adisham, run on two liquids; the engine takes only your diesel. Its own tank holds it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, and there spraying cleans the fumes.
There's a filler for every tank. Some motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place the two together under one flap. Filling the diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. Seldom filled, AdBlue usually goes in from a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think what filler to use. Mistakes happen in that gap between the two.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Adisham: how it takes place
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the car, and letting it run out means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off The Street, perhaps outside the pub in the village on the way home that evening.
Unfamiliar vehicles come next, as well. Rentals, new vehicles and company motors put their fillers differently, and habit goes for the cap used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in just as readily, and after the pour begins, nothing stops it. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Adisham or out in Bloodden.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A few seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Ileden or a forecourt in Adisham.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally do not.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — many motors mark what goes in each filler right there.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park outside the nearest station? Check with whoever drove the car last before leaving, rather than once the light goes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
Wherever in Kent the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Woodlands Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Discover at the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Don't go on to stage five.
Adisham: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Brief order, then. Top of it: the engine stays unstarted. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Thinning it with more diesel won't work, since AdBlue settles to the base instead of blending — and that is where your fuel is sucked from.
The staff at Shell, Pace or any forecourt will usually help to push the vehicle clear when you ask. If you're on your own drive around Adisham, leave the car where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your motor has already run. The next junction means the place to come off if you are on the M20, under 10 miles from Adisham. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Adisham is a smaller job than heading under 10 miles towards Canterbury — so tell us about how far it went.
Adisham: what occurs when our technicians get there
Anywhere your car came to rest, be it by Adisham Church of England Primary School, near Adisham Chapel or at home, our van comes to it. Which liquid went in, the quantity, and if it ran: we ask since the answers decide the work and price. You get that quote by phone, before anybody sets off.
Then that tank is drained and the fuel system rinsed thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. After that our engineers fire it up and check it runs properly before leaving.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after our technicians get there, as long as the engine has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet at night beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It is worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Adisham itself
Adisham is a small village in Kent, situated approximately 5.5 miles from Canterbury and 59.7 miles from London. Adisham sits in a low-lying area at an elevation of around 39 metres, surrounded by nearby places such as Bloodden, Ratling, and Bossington. Adisham has a population of around 655 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing.
AdBlue drains about Adisham, and Kent beyond
Ratling and Bossington are among the places around Adisham, a rural village, that the same vans cover, over CT postcodes. Fastest of all: give a CT3 3 postcode for the van.
The car remains put. Anywhere it stands — near Adisham Village Hall, in a layby en route to Recreation Ground, at home — that is where it is cleared. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of First World War Memorial, ring and ask instead of assuming.
For Adisham motorists, the short version
Read the cap before you tip. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Keep it off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across Kent.