Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Kings Hill: Why It Happens
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Around Kings Hill, catching it before your motor turns usually means draining and a full flush on the spot. Nothing happened yet? Below, the page explains the reasons it happens and the ways to avoid it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads round Kings Hill and Tower Hill carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Its own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, where spraying cleans the fumes.
Each tank has its own filler. Some motors keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have the two together behind one flap. The diesel side is fuelled at the petrol pump all the time. Much less regularly, the AdBlue side gets topped up — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. The mistake grows in the gap between them.
Kings Hill: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
It's rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Hurry follows from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a driveway off Gibson Drive, or on the way home in the car park outside The Spitfire.
Then, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old vehicle — because a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
No part stops the tip after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it happens in Kent Street or the middle of Kings Hill, it's the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Mereworth or a forecourt in Kings Hill, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of vehicles have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park outside West Malling? Ask the person who drove it last before leaving, rather than once the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Kent that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Kings Hill Avenue, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park and switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It seems daft. It does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two share a flap, confirm it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Stage five stays out.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Kings Hill already?
The short order of things, beginning with no starting the engine. Don't switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Thinning it with more diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of mixing — and that is where the fuel is pulled from.
The staff at BP, JET or another forecourt will normally lend a hand to push the car clear if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive around Kings Hill.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Leave the M20 — under 3 miles out of Kings Hill — at the next exit. A short hop across Kings Hill is a smaller job than a run towards Southend-on-Sea, under 25 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
Kings Hill: what happens when our engineers turn up
By Valley Invicta Primary School At Kings Hill, close to A Different Ball Game or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Our engineers ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it's run, since those answers settle the work and the quote. The price is given on the call, before any van leaves.
Then that tank is cleared and the system cleaned thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Filter cleaned or, where needed, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a test of your vehicle. The motor is started next and tested to make sure it runs correctly, all before we head off.
Unstarted vehicles usually need a half-hour job from the moment we arrive. The kit is fine on a live forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. It is worth looking at your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Kings Hill
Kings Hill is a locality in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of around 95 metres, approximately 27.6 miles from London. Kings Hill is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting the area's residential nature. Kings Hill is close to nearby places such as Kent Street, St Leonards Street, and Herne Pound, and is within reach of the nearest city, Southend-on-Sea, which is 22.9 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Kent, Kings Hill included
Throughout ME postcodes, our teams covering Kings Hill — a small village — work the nearby places too, Herne Pound and St Leonards Street among them. A postcode starting ME19 4 gets the van to you fastest.
Your car stays where it is. We drain it where it is — a side street close to David Lloyd Sports Centre, a lay-by on the way to Linear Park, a drive. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Kings Hill Community Centre, ring and ask rather than assuming.
In short, for Kings Hill people
Before you pour, read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Leave the vehicle switched off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, across Kent.