Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Church Street
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 the motor runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Church Street. The rest of this page covers why it happens and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads round Church Street and South Street carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, where a spray treats the fumes.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on a lot of cars. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up your diesel side at the pump happens all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think what filler to use. The mistake lives in that gap.
Church Street: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Church Street before work, or in the car park at The Monument on the way home.
The old car's cap is where the hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is a second thing: a strange motor.
Lastly, the spout fits: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as easily, and after the tip begins, nothing halts it. Whether it happens in South Tankerton or the middle of Church Street, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Whitstable or a forecourt around Church Street, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler is if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Whitstable, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
For the day the light appears — wherever you are across Kent — a simple routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of Ham Shades Lane, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park and switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, yes, yet it works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap never opened off.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? Then stop just there. Skip stage five entirely.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Church Street already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the motor. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the vehicle on. Diluting it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom rather than mixing — and that's where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help push your car away from the petrol pump if you're on a forecourt — the Tesco, the Sainsbury's or anywhere else. If you're on your own driveway in Church Street, leave the car where it stands.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. Church Street lies under 10 miles from the M2; there, take the next exit. A short hop across Church Street is a smaller job than a run towards Canterbury, under 10 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival around Church Street, and what takes place next
Our technicians come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside St Mary's Catholic Primary School, Whitstable, close to All Saints Hall or on your own drive. The answers decide the work and our price, and so our engineers ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it has run. The price comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Then your tank is emptied and the system flushed 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 that counts more here than with petrol. A test is at the end: before that, clean diesel is added, and the fuel filter is flushed or changed as needed. Then our engineers fire it up and check it runs smoothly before we go.
If your engine hasn't run, the majority of 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 at night. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Church Street itself
Church Street is a suburban area in Kent, situated near the coast and approximately 5 miles from Canterbury. Church Street has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are the most prevalent, and it is located at a relatively low elevation of 21 metres. Church Street is part of the larger urban area surrounding Canterbury, with nearby places including South Tankerton and Tankerton. Church Street is also within commuting distance to London, being around 51 miles away.
AdBlue drains around Church Street and across Kent
Being a residential suburb, Church Street has the same vans as nearby areas — Tankerton, Thurston Park — all the way across CT postcodes and the wider area beyond. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting CT5 1.
The vehicle stays where it is. Wherever it sits — near All Saints Church, in a lay-by en route to Plot 10, at home — that is where it gets drained. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Crab & Winkle Way Penny Farthing, ring and ask rather than guessing.
In short, for Church Street drivers
First, the cap; after that, the tip. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere around Kent.