Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Eastry: Why It Happens
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and your ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, carried out just where your vehicle stands in Eastry, is usually all it takes when caught before the motor runs. 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, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to your motor — yet many current diesels seen about Eastry and Statenborough hold another fluid too. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Other vehicles put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have the two side by side behind one flap. Filling the diesel side at the petrol 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 far less frequently. That gap is where the error lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Eastry: how it happens
It's hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off High Street before work, or in the car park outside The Five Bells With B & B on the way home.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand hits 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 tip once it has started. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Eastry or out in Gore.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Hammill or a forecourt in Eastry.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps are often blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually don't.
- Many motors give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on many cars. Check for it.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The previous driver knows. Ask as you pick up a rental or fleet car — at Sandwich's car park, say — rather than once the light appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
The day the light goes on, wherever across Kent, follow this routine.
- Not in a rush on the side of Woodnesborough Lane, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park and switch off first.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — after you have found the filler and read it.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the vehicle, shut the cap and look again that your diesel cap never came off.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Eastry already?
Don't start your engine: that is how the short order of things starts. Leave the ignition off too, since on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself starts the fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is sucked from.
Ask the attendants to help roll your car clear of the petrol pump if you're on a forecourt — the Gulf, the Shell or somewhere else. On your own drive around Eastry? So the vehicle remains put.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. The next exit is where to come off if you're on the M20, under 15 miles from Eastry. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Eastry is less a job than a run of under 15 miles towards Canterbury, and so say.
What takes place when our technicians get there around Eastry
Outside Eastry Church of England Primary School, near 10th Deal Eastry Scout Group or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Which liquid was put in, the amount, and whether it ran: our engineers ask since those replies set both work and price. No one sets off until you have had the quote by phone.
Draining that tank comes next, then a full flush of the fuel system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and neither clears away unaided. Hence it matters more. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Before leaving, we start it and check that it is running smoothly.
With pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine hasn't run take roughly half an hour after our technicians are there. No money in advance; you settle up on the day. At the end, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. It is worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Eastry, for a moment
Eastry is a village in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of around 25 metres, approximately 10 miles from Canterbury and 64 miles from London. Eastry has a population of around 1466 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Eastry is close to nearby places such as Gore, Buttsole, and Selson, and remains a residential community with a rural character.
AdBlue drains round Eastry, and Kent beyond
Eastry is a rural village, and our teams that cover it also work the places around it, Buttsole and Selson among them, across the CT postcode area. Fastest of all: quote a CT13 0 postcode for the van.
No need to move the vehicle. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Eastry Picnic Site, a side street close to St Mary the Blessed: we drain the car where it sits. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of St Mary The Blessed Virgin Church, ring and ask instead of guessing.
For Eastry motorists, the short version
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere around Kent, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — and so leave it off then phone 0333 366 0103.