Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Cliftonville: Why It Happens
Leave your engine and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Caught before the engine runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Cliftonville. Not happened yet? Below, the page explains the reasons it takes place and the how to avoid it for good.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads round Cliftonville and Margate carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank has a filler of its own. Plenty of vehicles have a single flap for both, whereas some move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. Far less often, the AdBlue side is topped up — normally from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Cliftonville: how it takes place
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
Haste follows from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a drive off Holly Gardens, or heading home in the car park at The Wheatsheaf.
Then, your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — since a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
A spouted bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, once started, keeps on. It takes seconds, be it out in Northdown or right in the centre of Cliftonville.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Whether a Cliftonville forecourt or a driveway out in St Peters, take a couple of seconds on these before anything goes in.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- On plenty of motors, size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows which it is when the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Margate? Ask whoever drove the car last before you set off, not when the light goes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
On the day the warning comes on — wherever it is in Kent — a simple routine to use.
- Turn off after you park — level ground, motor stopped, and never rushed by Leicester Avenue at the roadside.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, yes, yet 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.
- Close the cap, then check again — confirm the diesel filler remained closed throughout. Only then, start the car.
Find during the second or third stage that the bottle went into the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Don't go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Cliftonville?
Do not start your engine: that's how the short order of things starts. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch it on. Topping up with diesel will not dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — Shell, Tesco or another — the attendants will normally help push your car clear, when you ask. Your own driveway in Cliftonville is where it stays.
Already run? Pull over once it's safe, then switch off. The next exit means the place to leave if you're on the M2, under 25 miles from Cliftonville. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Cliftonville is smaller a job than a trip of under 25 miles towards Canterbury, and so say.
Cliftonville: what happens when we arrive
Our engineers come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Cliftonville Primary School, close to Cliftonville Public Library or on your own drive. The replies settle the work and the quote, and so we ask what was put in, about how much, and if it's run. You hear that quote by phone, before anyone sets off.
Then your tank is cleared and the system rinsed thoroughly. With AdBlue that counts 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. The filter cleaned or, if needed, replaced; fresh diesel in; then a check of the vehicle. Before we leave, our engineers start the car and make sure that it's running correctly.
Unrun cars usually mean a half-hour job after arrival. The equipment is fine on a live filling station, and hushed enough for a driveway late at night. No money upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. It's worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Cliftonville, briefly
Cliftonville is a coastal suburban area in Kent, situated near the towns of Margate and Ramsgate, with Cliftonville being a popular residential location. Cliftonville sits at an elevation of 29 metres, overlooking the sea, and Cliftonville is close to other nearby places such as Northdown and Kingsgate. Cliftonville has a population of around 4997 people, with Cliftonville being characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock.
AdBlue drains across Kent, Cliftonville included
As a residential suburb, Cliftonville has the same vans as surrounding areas — Kingsgate, Reading Street — all the way across CT postcodes and the wider area around them. Fastest of all: quote a CT9 3 postcode for our van.
No need to shift your car. We drain it where it is — a side street near Holy Trinity, a lay-by on the way to Northdown Park, a drive. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Trinity Community Resource Centre.
The short version for Cliftonville drivers
Pour nothing until you have read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Leave it off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Kent.