Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Mowshurst
Keep your motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. In Mowshurst, catching it before the engine runs usually means a drain and a full flush on the spot. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to the engine — but plenty of modern diesels driven about Mowshurst and Pootings hold a second fluid too. The exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to clean them, from a separate tank.
There is a filler on each tank. On a lot of vehicles 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 petrol pump, the diesel side is topped up constantly. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think which cap to use. The error lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs around Mowshurst
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from your car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Four Elms Road, perhaps outside Ye Olde Crown Inn on the way home that evening.
Then, your hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old vehicle — because a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not.
Lastly, the spout fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in as readily, and once the pour begins, nothing halts it. Marlpit Hill or the middle of Mowshurst: it is the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Whether a Mowshurst forecourt or a driveway over in Four Elms, spend a few seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside your fuel flap: many motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it is when the filler isn't next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Edenbridge? Check with the person who drove it last before leaving, not once the light goes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
On the day the warning comes on — anywhere it is across Kent — a simple routine to use.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Swan Lane.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- Both behind one flap? Then make sure the lid on your diesel filler is still shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Finish once your tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour slowly using the own spout.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check once more, 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 your diesel side. Step five stays out.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Mowshurst already?
Do not start the motor: that is where the short order of things starts. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the car on. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is sucked from.
On a forecourt — Esso, Gulf or any other — the attendants will usually help roll the vehicle away, when you ask. If you're on your own driveway around Mowshurst, leave the vehicle where it sits.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. Leave the M25 — under 5 miles out of Mowshurst — at the next junction. A short hop across Mowshurst is a smaller job than a run towards Westminster, under 25 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
What occurs when our engineers arrive in Mowshurst
Outside Edenbridge Primary School, close to The Eden Centre or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Which liquid got in, the amount, and whether it ran: our engineers ask since those answers set the work and price. On the phone call itself, you are told our quote — before dispatch.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. More than with petrol, it matters here: crystals build up, some metals are attacked, and nothing clears away on its own, no matter how long it is left. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Before leaving, we fire it up and make sure that it's running properly.
Unstarted cars usually need a half-hour job from arrival. The kit is fine on a live filling station, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. The insurer usually wants the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Mowshurst and where it is
Mowshurst is a small hamlet in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of 61 metres, and is located near Marlpit Hill and Medhurst Row. Mowshurst is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Mowshurst is close to the town of Edenbridge and is approximately 22 miles from London. Mowshurst has a small population of around 1124 residents.
AdBlue drains about Mowshurst, and Kent beyond
Mowshurst is a rural hamlet, and the teams that cover it also work the places near it, Medhurst Row and Edenbridge among them, across the TN postcode area. A postcode starting TN8 6 gets the van to you fastest.
The car doesn't need to shift. Anywhere it sits — near Edenbridge Leisure Centre, on a layby en route to Stangrove Park, at home — that's where it gets emptied. Awkward to explain, like the back of St Lawrence Edenbridge? By a border? Asking beats assuming, so ring.
In short, for Mowshurst people
Pour nothing till you have read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep the car switched off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Kent.