How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bakers Cross
Stop here a minute if the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Bakers Cross. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
No single fluid but two: that is how plenty of modern diesels near Bakers Cross and Wilsley Green carry, with diesel for your motor. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, where spraying cleans the gas.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up constantly. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens around Bakers Cross
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things coming up together.
On a driveway off Tilsden Lane before work, or in the car park outside The George heading home: that is where the rushed top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car warns you, and if it is empty, limp mode follows.
Unfamiliar cars come second, too. Rentals, new cars and company vehicles place their fillers in new places, and the hand reaches for the cap it 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 tip once it has started. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Bakers Cross or out in Coursehorn.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Be it a Bakers Cross forecourt or a driveway over in Golford, take a few seconds over these before any is poured in.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- On plenty of vehicles, the size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by the diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check when you collect a rental or fleet car — from Staplehurst's car park, perhaps — rather than once the warning comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
Wherever in Kent the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time to spare — not rushing on the side of Dorothy Avenue.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It seems daft. It works.
- The two under a single flap? Then make sure the lid on your diesel filler is still closed ahead of raising the bottle.
- Stop once the tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; before that, tip gently through the built-in spout.
- Before you start the vehicle, shut the cap and check again that the diesel cap was never opened off.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? Then stop just there. Skip stage five altogether.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Bakers Cross already?
Short list, then. Top of that: your engine stays unstarted. Do not switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel will not dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of your tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — BP, Cheeseman's Garage or any other — the staff will normally help push your car clear, when you ask. Your own driveway in Bakers Cross is the place it stays.
Already run? Stop when it is sensible, then turn off. Bakers Cross lies under 15 miles from the M20; on it, take the next exit. About how far did it go? Hopping across Bakers Cross is less work than a run of under 50 miles to Canterbury, and so say.
Bakers Cross: what takes place when our technicians turn up
Anywhere the vehicle came to rest, be it by Cranbrook Church of England Primary School, near The Union Mill or on your own drive, the van comes to it. Both the work and our quote depend on three answers — what fluid, which amount, and if it's run — so our technicians ask. You get that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. A test is at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the filter is cleaned or replaced as needed. Then our technicians start it and check it runs properly before leaving.
If your engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Bakers Cross and where it is
Bakers Cross is a small locality in Kent, situated on the riverside with an elevation of around 85 metres. Bakers Cross lies near the villages of Coursehorn, Cranbrook, and Swattenden, and is approximately 26 miles from Canterbury. Bakers Cross is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Bakers Cross is also within commuting distance of London, being around 41 miles from the capital.
AdBlue drains around Bakers Cross and across Kent
Being a small village, Bakers Cross has the same vans as surrounding areas — Cranbrook, Swattenden — all the way across TN postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Fastest of all: give a TN17 3 postcode to our van.
Your car does not need to shift. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Rammell Field, a side street near Strict Baptist Chapel: our technicians drain the vehicle where it is. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Mars, 4th Planet from the Sun.
The short version for Bakers Cross motorists
Pour nothing till you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere across Kent, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless — so leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103.