How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Barrow Hill
Leave the motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. In Barrow Hill, catching it before the engine runs usually means draining and a thorough flush where it stands. The remainder of this page explains why it occurs and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you are reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many modern diesels in Bybrook, like those in Barrow Hill, carry on two fluids; the motor takes just your diesel. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has one filler of its own. Some cars put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place both side by side behind one flap. The diesel side is topped up at the petrol pump all the time. The AdBlue side is filled far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and usually by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur in Barrow Hill?
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
Haste follows from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off Magazine Road, or on the way home in the car park outside Oranges.
The old car's cap is where the hand reaches — but a rental car, a new motor or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's a second factor: a strange vehicle.
Lastly, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in just as easily, and once the tip starts, nothing stops it. St Georges Square or the heart of Barrow Hill: it is the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these before pouring, at a forecourt around Barrow Hill or a drive over in Bockhanger. A few seconds, no more.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Many cars fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on plenty of vehicles. Look for it.
- The handbook shows where it is if the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Ashford International, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Kent that is.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of St. Teresa's Close.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — once you have located your filler and read it.
- Both under a single flap? Then confirm the lid on the diesel side stays shut before lifting the bottle.
- Finish once your tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; before that, pour slowly using its built-in spout.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Discover at the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Stage five is out.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Barrow Hill?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your engine. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, just where fuel is taken from.
The staff at eg, Sainsbury's or any forecourt will usually lend a hand pushing your car clear when you ask. If you are on your own drive in Barrow Hill, leave it where it is.
Where your engine has run by now, pull over safely then turn the car off. On the M20, under a mile from Barrow Hill, that means the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Barrow Hill is smaller a job than a run of under 15 miles towards Canterbury, so tell us.
When our engineers get there in Barrow Hill, what occurs?
Anywhere the car came to rest, be it by Ashford, St Mary's Church of England Primary School, beside St. Teresa of Avila or on your own drive, our van comes to it. Both the work and our price depend on three replies — what fluid, which quantity, and whether it has run — so we ask. Nobody heads out before you have had the price by phone.
Your system is then flushed thoroughly, after that tank is emptied. 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 does not wash out on its own. After the filter is flushed — or renewed, if needed — clean diesel goes in, and finally the vehicle gets tested. Then we fire it up and make sure it runs smoothly before we leave.
If your engine has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours once this job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. It's worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Barrow Hill
Barrow Hill is a suburban area in Kent, situated on the riverside with an elevation of around 65 metres. Barrow Hill lies near the city of Canterbury, approximately 12.7 miles away, and is also close to other nearby places such as St Georges Square and Ashford. Barrow Hill has a population of around 5849 people and predominantly consists of semi-detached housing. Barrow Hill is located in the South East region of England, about 49.5 miles from London.
AdBlue drains around Barrow Hill and across Kent
Throughout TN postcodes, our teams that cover Barrow Hill — a residential suburb — work the surrounding locations too, South Ashford and Ashford among them. A postcode starting TN24 8 gets the van to you fastest.
The car doesn't need to shift. Anywhere it stands — near The Tank, in a lay-by en route to Little Manor Play Park, at home — that is where it is cleared. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of The Bolt.
Barrow Hill motorists: the short version
First, the cap; then, the tip. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Keep it switched off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, across Kent.