Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Lower Halstow
Pause reading a minute if the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Around Lower Halstow, finding it before the motor turns usually means draining and a full flush where it stands. The remainder of this page explains why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't — useful if you are reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Diesel feeds your motor — but many newer diesels driven around Lower Halstow and Ham Green carry another liquid as well. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to clean them, from its own tank.
Every tank has one filler of its own. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less commonly. It's in the gap that the error happens.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs around Lower Halstow
It is seldom 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 goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off School Lane before work, or in the car park outside The Three Tuns on the way home.
Unfamiliar vehicles come second, as well. Hire cars, new motors and company cars put their fillers in new places, and the hand goes for the cap used on the old one.
No part halts the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Lower Halstow or out in Wetham Green.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt in Lower Halstow or a drive out in Hartlip Hill. Seconds, that's all.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- On plenty of cars, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — many vehicles mark what goes in each filler just there.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler is if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Newington? Ask the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, rather than once the light goes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
On the day the light comes on — anywhere it is in Kent — a simple routine to use.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of The Street.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap works — once you've located your filler and read it.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Stage five is off limits.
Lower Halstow: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Don't start your engine: that is where the short order of things starts. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the vehicle on. Diluting it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue settles to the base instead of blending — and that's where the fuel is sucked from.
At a forecourt — Berengrave Service Station, Asda or any other — the staff will usually help push the car away, if you ask. Your own drive around Lower Halstow is the place it stays.
Already started? Pull over once it is safe, then turn off. Lower Halstow sits under 3 miles from the M2; there, take the next exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Southend-on-Sea, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Lower Halstow.
Our arrival around Lower Halstow, and what occurs next
Anywhere the vehicle has stopped, whether outside Lower Halstow Primary School, near Lower Halstow Memorial Hall or at home, the van comes to it. Our engineers ask what was put in, about how much, and if it has run, since those answers decide the work and our quote. You hear that price by phone, before anybody sets off.
Then your tank is cleared and the system rinsed thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more here than with petrol. Testing comes at the end: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and your filter is cleaned or changed if necessary. Then we start the engine and make sure it runs properly before leaving.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once we arrive, provided the motor hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet at night beside a house. The insurer usually wants the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours once the job is done. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. It's worth checking your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Lower Halstow and where it is
Lower Halstow is a small village on the north Kent coast, situated near the mouth of the Medway estuary at an elevation of around 10 metres. Lower Halstow has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are predominant, and the village is close to nearby places like Wetham Green and Upchurch. Lower Halstow is within commuting distance of London, about 35.5 miles to the west, and is also near the city of Southend-on-Sea, which is 11.6 miles away. Lower Halstow remains a quiet residential community with a population of around 1210 people.
AdBlue drains around Lower Halstow and across Kent
Upchurch and Breach are among the places near Lower Halstow, a coastal village, that the same teams cover, throughout ME postcodes. Quote a postcode beginning ME9 7, and our van gets there quickest.
There's no need to move the vehicle. Anywhere it stands — near Lower Halstow Church, in a lay-by en route to The Old Brickworks, at home — that's where it is emptied. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of St Mary the Virgin.
The short version for Lower Halstow motorists
Before you pour, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it sits, anywhere in Kent.