Cliffs End: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Keep your engine and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. In Cliffs End, finding it before your motor runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush on the spot. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of modern diesels in Chilton, as well as Cliffs End, run on two fluids; your motor gets just the diesel. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on many motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Diesel goes in at every forecourt call-out, again and again. Seldom filled, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think which cap it needs. Mistakes happen in that gap between them.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place around Cliffs End
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a driveway off Cliffsend Road before work, or in the car park outside the pub in the village on the way home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle warns you, and once it's gone, limp mode follows.
New-to-you cars come next, as well. Hire cars, new vehicles and company vehicles place their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once started, carries on. Whether it takes place in Sevenscore or the middle of Cliffs End, it's the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Nethercourt or a forecourt around Cliffs End, check these. They take a few seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on many cars. Check for it.
- The handbook shows which it is when the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check when you collect a hire car or fleet car — at Thanet Parkway's car park, perhaps — not once the light appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
On the day the warning appears — wherever it is in Kent — a simple routine to follow.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Foads Hill.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both share a flap, confirm it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the wrong tank? That's where you stop. Don't carry on to step five.
Cliffs End: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The short order of things, beginning with no starting the engine. The fuel pump starts on many diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Filling up with diesel won't dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of your tank, right where fuel is taken from.
At a forecourt — JET, Shell or another — the attendants will usually help push your car away, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive in Cliffs End.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Cliffs End lies under 25 miles from the M20; on it, use the first exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Canterbury, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Cliffs End.
When our technicians turn up in Cliffs End, what takes place?
We come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Chilton Primary School, near St Mary or on your own drive. Both the work and the quote depend on three answers — what fluid, which amount, and whether it has run — so our technicians ask. That price is given on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
The system is then cleaned thoroughly, once your tank is drained. 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. A test is at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and your filter is flushed or changed if necessary. Next our technicians start the car and confirm it runs correctly before we go.
Unrun cars mostly need a half-hour job after arrival. The equipment is fine on a live forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to check yours.
About Cliffs End, briefly
Cliffs End is a small village on the coast of Kent, situated near the towns of Ramsgate and Pegwell, with a mix of detached housing and scenic views. Cliffs End sits at a low elevation of around 15 metres above sea level, close to the nearby villages of Sevenscore and Manston. Cliffs End is located approximately 12.9 miles from Canterbury and 65.5 miles from London, making it a relatively rural community within the South East region. Cliffs End has a population of around 1576 residents, living in predominantly detached homes.
AdBlue drains across Kent, Cliffs End included
Pegwell and Manston are among the places near Cliffs End, a coastal village, that the same vans cover, over CT postcodes. Give a postcode that starts CT12 5, and the van gets there fastest.
No need to move your car. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Marjorie Chapman Meadow, a side street near Cliffsend Village Hall: our technicians drain the car where it is. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Hugin Viking Ship, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Cliffs End motorists: the short version
First, the cap; after that, the pour. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Keep the car switched off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Kent.