Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Aycliff: Why It Happens
Stop here a minute if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, done just where your vehicle sits in Aycliff, is usually what it needs when found before your motor runs. Not happened yet? Below, the rest of the page explains the why it happens and the ways to prevent it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Many modern diesels on the roads about Aycliff and Clarendon carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
There's a filler on each tank. Other motors put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place both together behind one flap. Diesel goes in on every forecourt call-out, again and again. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. It's in that gap that the slip happens.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs around Aycliff
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things coming up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off St Giles Close before work, or in the car park outside Crown & Sceptre on the way home.
Then the vehicle is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part halts the tip once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it takes place in Maxton or the middle of Aycliff, it's the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A few seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a drive in Farthingloe or a forecourt in Aycliff.
- Read the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally are not.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — many cars mark what goes in which inlet right there.
- The handbook shows where it lives if your filler isn't next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Dover Priory? Check with whoever drove the vehicle last before leaving, not once the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Wherever across Kent the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Not in a rush on the side of St Martin's Close, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park then switch off properly.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two sit under a flap, make sure it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, and check again — making sure your diesel filler remained shut throughout. Only then, start the vehicle.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Step five is off limits.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Aycliff already?
Do not start your motor: that's how the short order of things begins. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch it on. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of that tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
The attendants at BP, Shell or another forecourt will normally help pushing your car away if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive in Aycliff.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the motor has already run. Aycliff lies under 10 miles from the M20; on it, use the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Aycliff is smaller work than a run of under 15 miles towards Canterbury, and so tell us.
What happens when we get there in Aycliff
Our engineers come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Aycliffe Community Primary School, near Citadel Battery or on your own driveway. What liquid was put in, the amount, and whether it ran: we ask since those answers set the work and quote. No one heads out before you have had our quote over the phone.
Then that tank is emptied and your system flushed thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. Testing comes at the end: before that, fresh diesel is added, and the fuel filter is cleaned or replaced if necessary. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour after our engineers arrive, as long as the engine has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. Your insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once this job is done. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. Before we get there, have a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Aycliff, briefly
Aycliff is a suburban area in Kent, situated near the coast and approximately 46 metres above sea level. Aycliff lies within commuting distance of Canterbury, which is about 14.8 miles away, and is also relatively close to other nearby places such as Maxton and Western Heights. Aycliff has a mix of housing types, but terraced housing is predominant in the area. Aycliff is part of the larger South East region, about 67.2 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Kent, Aycliff included
As a residential suburb, Aycliff shares its vans surrounding areas — Western Heights, Elms Vale — right across CT postcodes and the wider area beyond. Quickest of all: give a CT17 9 postcode for the van.
No need to shift the vehicle. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Elms Vale Recreation Ground, a side street near The Citadel: we drain it where it is. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Knights Templar Church.
The short version for Aycliff drivers
Read the cap before you tip. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it wherever it is, wherever in Kent: switch it off then phone 0333 366 0103.