Borden: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case set this page down for now, leave the ignition and engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Borden. Reading in advance? In that case the rest covers how it happens and how to prevent it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Not one liquid but two: that's what many modern diesels near Borden and Tunstall carry, with diesel for your engine. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to fresh it, from a separate tank.
There's a filler on every tank. Plenty of motors have a single flap for both, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump happens constantly. Far less often, the AdBlue side gets topped up — normally from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. The error lives in that gap.
Borden: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a drive off Barn Close before work, or in the car park outside The Maypole on the way home: that's where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle warns you, and once it is empty, limp mode follows.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in as readily, and once the pour begins, no part halts it. Whether it happens in Harmans Corner or the middle of Borden, it's the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Be it a Borden forecourt or a driveway out in Chalkwell, spend a couple of seconds over these before any is poured in.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Look inside the fuel flap: many motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Sittingbourne? Ask the person who drove the car last before you set off, rather than when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
The day the light comes on, wherever around Kent, use this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of The Street.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — once you have located the filler and read the cap.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to step five.
Borden: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your motor. Leave your ignition off too, since on many diesels switching it on by itself starts the pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is pulled from.
The attendants at Esso, Texaco or any forecourt will usually help pushing your car away when asked. On your own drive around Borden? So the car stays put.
Already run? Pull over when it is safe, then turn off. On the M2, under 3 miles from Borden, that means the next junction. A short hop across Borden is a smaller job than a run towards Southend-on-Sea, under 15 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Borden: what occurs when we arrive
Anywhere the vehicle came to rest, whether by Borden Church of England Primary School, beside Borden Church or at home, our van comes to it. Our engineers ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, because the replies decide this work and our price. You get that quote by phone, before anyone sets off.
Then that tank is emptied and the fuel system purged thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more here than with petrol. A test is last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and your filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. After that our technicians fire it up and make sure it runs properly before we leave.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after we get there, as long as the engine hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a live forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — and so use the wait to check yours.
About Borden, for a moment
Borden is a small village in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of 54 metres, and is located near the villages of Harmans Corner and Hearts Delight. Borden has a population of around 768 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Borden is close to Key Street and is within commuting distance of Southend-on-Sea, which is approximately 14 miles away. Borden is also about 38 miles from London, making it a potential base for those working in the capital.
AdBlue drains in Borden and across Kent
Being a rural village, Borden shares its vans nearby areas — Hearts Delight, Key Street — right through ME postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Give a postcode beginning ME9 8, and our van arrives quickest.
Moving the vehicle is not needed. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Tunstall Village Memorial Hall, a lay-by on the way to Borden Village park, a driveway. Awkward to explain, like the back of Tunstall Church? Close to a border? Asking beats guessing, and so phone.
For Borden drivers, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it wherever it is, wherever in Kent: keep the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.