How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Preston
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and your ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Preston. Nothing happened yet? Below, the page explains the why it happens and the how to avoid it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of modern diesels around Ospringe, like those in Preston, run on two liquids; the engine takes only your diesel. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that's the layout on a lot of cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Diesel goes in on every forecourt call-out, week in, week out. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less commonly, normally from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in that gap that the slip happens.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank take place around Preston?
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things lining up together.
Haste comes from the warning. The vehicle tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a drive off Nelson Street, or heading home in the car park outside The Elephant.
Unfamiliar motors are second, as well. Rentals, new motors and company cars put their fillers differently, and the hand goes for the cap used on the old one.
Nothing stops 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. Whether it takes place in Faversham or the middle of Preston, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt around Preston or a drive over in Copton. A few seconds, that's all.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- On many motors, the size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of cars mark what goes in which inlet just there.
- Can't see it next to your diesel filler? Then check beneath the bonnet or in the boot — the owner's manual says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Faversham? Ask the person who drove the car last before leaving, rather than once the light goes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
When the light goes on, anywhere around Kent, follow this routine.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of The Mall.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap, then check again — making sure your diesel cap remained closed throughout. Only then, start your car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Never go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Preston?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the motor. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the car on. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it's the Tesco or the Shell, ask the attendants to help roll your car away from the pump. Your own driveway in Preston is where it stays.
Where your motor has been run already, stop somewhere safe and turn it off. On the M2, under a mile from Preston, that means the next junction. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Preston makes a smaller job than heading under 10 miles to Canterbury — so say roughly how far it went.
Preston: what occurs when our engineers turn up
The van reaches your car wherever it stopped — your own driveway, beside St. Catherine's Church, or by Ethelbert Road Primary School. Both the work and our quote depend on three answers — what liquid, what amount, and if it's run — so we ask. Nobody sets off until you've heard our quote by phone.
The system is then rinsed thoroughly, after your tank is cleared. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. After your filter has been flushed — or renewed, where needed — clean diesel is added, and then the car gets tested. Before we leave, we fire it up and make sure that it is running correctly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after our technicians arrive, as long as the engine has not run — and the pumps we use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents your insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Preston itself
Preston is a suburban area in Kent, situated approximately 8.5 miles from Canterbury and 45.9 miles from London. Preston sits at an elevation of 23 metres, surrounded by nearby places such as Faversham, The Brents, and Davington. Preston has a population of around 7040 people, predominantly living in terraced housing. Preston is located in the inland area of the South East region, with its residential community contributing to the local demographic.
AdBlue drains around Preston and across Kent
Being a residential suburb, Preston has the same vans as nearby places — The Brents, Davington — right across ME postcodes and the wider area around them. Give a postcode beginning ME13 8, and the van arrives quickest.
The car does not need to shift. The drain happens right there, be it a drive, a road by The Alexander Centre, or a lay-by on the way to Faversham Recreation Ground. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Fleur de Lis Heritage Centre, ring and ask rather than assuming.
For Preston drivers, the short version
Tip no AdBlue until you've read the cap. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it wherever it stands, wherever in Kent: keep it off and ring 0333 366 0103.