Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bessels Green
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. Around Bessels Green, catching it before your engine runs usually leaves a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. The remainder of this page covers why it takes place and how to make sure it does not — handy if you're reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to your motor — but plenty of newer diesels driven round Bessels Green and Kippington hold a second fluid too. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where a spray treats the gas.
Different tanks, separate fillers. 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. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less often, usually from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the slip lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur around Bessels Green?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a drive off Bessels Green Road before work, or in the car park at Kings Head heading home: that is where the rushed top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it's gone, limp mode follows.
Then your car is strange. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It takes seconds, be it in Chipstead or bang in the centre of Bessels Green.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Longford or a forecourt in Bessels Green, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Many motors give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver knows. Ask when you collect a hire car or company car — from Sevenoaks's car park, perhaps — not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Kent that is.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Westerham 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 — then leave the vehicle on.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the vehicle, shut the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap was never came off.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? So stop right there. Skip stage five altogether.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Bessels Green?
Brief list, then. Top of it: your engine remains unstarted. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch it on. Topping up with diesel will not weaken it: instead, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it is the Tesco or the another forecourt nearby, ask the staff to help push your car away from the pump. Your own drive around Bessels Green is where it stays.
Where the engine has been run by now, stop somewhere safe and switch the vehicle off. On the M25, under a mile from Bessels Green, that means the next junction. About how far did it go? Hopping across Bessels Green is less a job than a trip of under 25 miles towards London, and so tell us.
Our arrival in Bessels Green, and what happens next
Our van reaches the vehicle wherever it has come to rest — your own drive, near Chipstead Place Lawn Tennis Club, or outside Amherst School. Both the work and our quote depend on three answers — what liquid, which amount, and if it's run — so our technicians ask. That quote comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
Then the tank is cleared and the system purged thoroughly. 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 the flush matters more here than with petrol. Once the fuel filter has been flushed — or renewed, where needed — clean diesel is added, and then your vehicle is tested. Your engine is started next and tested to be sure it runs properly, all before our engineers go.
If the engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Your insurer will ask for an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. It's worth checking your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Bessels Green and where it is
Bessels Green is a suburban area in Kent, situated near the River Darent and close to the North Downs. Bessels Green sits at an elevation of around 100 metres, with views of the surrounding countryside. Bessels Green is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock and is located near other suburban areas such as Chipstead and Riverhead.
AdBlue drains in Bessels Green and across Kent
Riverhead and Dryhill are among the places around Bessels Green, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, throughout TN postcodes. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting TN13 2.
Shifting the vehicle isn't necessary. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Chapel of the Good Shepherd, and Chipstead Parish Hall, a lay-by on the way to the green space at the edge of the village, a drive. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Lions, ring and ask rather than assuming.
For Bessels Green drivers, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere in Kent, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — so leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.