How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Boughton Monchelsea
Pause here for a moment when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Boughton Monchelsea. The remainder of this page covers why it takes place and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel goes to the engine — but plenty of current diesels driven about Boughton Monchelsea and Marlpit hold another fluid as well. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. Plenty of vehicles have a single flap for both, while others move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Filling the diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. Mistakes happen in that gap between them.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen around Boughton Monchelsea?
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things lining up together.
Haste follows from the warning. The vehicle warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off Bresfords Hill, or on the way home in the car park at The Curious Eatery.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have 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, so nothing stops the pour after it has started. Whether it occurs in Boughton Green or the middle of Boughton Monchelsea, it is the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Boughton Monchelsea forecourt or a driveway out in Park Wood, spend a few seconds over these before any is poured in.
- Position can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually don't.
- Plenty of motors give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Check inside your fuel flap: many cars carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows which it lives if the filler is not next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park outside East Farleigh? Check with the person who drove it last before you set off, not once the light goes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
For the day the light appears — wherever it is in Kent — a simple routine to use.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, engine off, and not rushed beside Green Lane on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. When both sit under a flap, confirm it's closed before lifting the bottle.
- Finish once your tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; before that, pour gently using the built-in spout.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Discover at the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Step five stays out.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Boughton Monchelsea already?
Brief order, then. Top of it: your motor stays unstarted. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
The staff at FASS, Shell or another forecourt will usually lend a hand pushing the vehicle away if asked. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive around Boughton Monchelsea.
Where the engine has been run by now, stop safely then turn the vehicle off. Boughton Monchelsea sits under 5 miles from the M20; on it, use the next exit. Mileage counts — a short hop across Boughton Monchelsea is a smaller job than driving under 25 miles towards Southend-on-Sea — so say roughly how far it went.
What occurs when our technicians arrive around Boughton Monchelsea
Our technicians come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Boughton Monchelsea Primary School, close to Boughton Monchelsea Village Hall or on your own driveway. Both the work and our price depend on three replies — which fluid, what amount, and if it has run — so we ask. Nobody heads out until you have heard our price by phone.
The fuel system is then flushed thoroughly, once that tank is emptied. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither washes out unaided. Hence it matters more. A test is last: before that, clean diesel is added, and the filter is cleaned or replaced if necessary. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
With pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the engine has not run need roughly half an hour after we are there. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Boughton Monchelsea, for a moment
Boughton Monchelsea is a village in Kent, situated near the River Medway at an elevation of 101 metres. Boughton Monchelsea has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are predominant, and the village is close to nearby places such as Boughton Green and Loose. Boughton Monchelsea is located near the town of Maidstone, but is also within commuting distance of larger cities like Southend-on-Sea and London, which is approximately 34 miles away.
AdBlue drains in Boughton Monchelsea and across Kent
Throughout ME postcodes, our teams covering Boughton Monchelsea — a village — work the nearby locations too, Loose and Cock Street among them. A postcode starting ME17 4 gets our van to you fastest.
The vehicle stays where it is. Anywhere it stands — beside Quarry Wood Iron age Earthworks, on a lay-by en route to Boughton Monchelsea Recreation Ground, at home — that's where it gets emptied. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of All Saints, ring and ask rather than guessing.
For Boughton Monchelsea motorists, the short version
Read the cap before you tip. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it waits, anywhere around Kent.