AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Sandhurst: How It Occurs and How to Avoid It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and your ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. Usually, if the motor has not run, it's drained and thoroughly flushed where the car sits around Sandhurst. The rest of this page covers why it occurs and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
No single liquid but two: that's what many modern diesels around Sandhurst and Standen Street carry, with diesel feeding your motor. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. 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. Diesel goes in on each forecourt visit, again and again. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. Mistakes happen in that gap between the two.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Sandhurst: how it takes place
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Hurry follows from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off Rye Road, or heading home in the car park outside The Swan.
Then, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old car — since a hire car, a new motor or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
A spout-topped bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, once begun, keeps on. Whether it takes place in Sandhurst Cross or the middle of Sandhurst, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Peters Green or a forecourt in Sandhurst, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the flap and look for a label — many vehicles mark what belongs in which inlet just there.
- The handbook says where it is when the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check as you pick up a rental or company car — from Robertsbridge's car park, say — not once the light appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
Wherever in Kent the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Queen Street.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud while unscrewing it. It seems daft. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the car on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, shut the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap was never came off.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Don't go on to step five.
Sandhurst: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Don't start the engine: that's where the short order of things starts. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the car on. Topping up with diesel won't weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, right where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — JET, BP or another — the attendants will usually help roll your car clear, when you ask. At home in Sandhurst? So the car remains where it is.
Already run? Pull over when it is safe, then switch off. Sandhurst sits under 15 miles from the M20; on it, use the next exit. Distance counts — a quick hop across Sandhurst makes a smaller job than heading under 50 miles to Canterbury — so say roughly how far it went.
Our arrival in Sandhurst, and what occurs next
Wherever the car came to rest, be it outside Sandhurst Primary School, beside Mission Church or at home, our van comes to it. Our engineers ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, because the replies settle this work and our quote. During the phone call itself, you hear our price — before anything else.
Draining your tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the fuel system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither clears away unaided. That is why it matters more. Testing is at the end: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and your filter is cleaned or changed as needed. Before we go, our engineers fire it up and make sure that it's running properly.
Using pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your engine has not run take about half an hour once our engineers are there. No money in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Sandhurst and where it is
Sandhurst is a small village in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of around 55 metres, and is located near the villages of Sandhurst Cross and Linkhill. Sandhurst has a population of approximately 670 residents and features predominantly semi-detached housing. Sandhurst is close to Field Green and is within commuting distance of Canterbury, which is around 28 miles away. Sandhurst is also about 45 miles from London, making it a rural option for those working in the capital.
Sandhurst and Kent: AdBlue drains across the area
As a rural village, Sandhurst has the same vans as surrounding places — Linkhill, Field Green — right through TN postcodes and the wider area beyond. A postcode starting TN18 5 gets our van to you fastest.
No need to move the vehicle. The drain happens on the spot, whether a drive, a street by St Nicholas, Sandhurst, or a layby on the way to Sandhurst Sports Ground. Guessing doesn't help at the back of St Giles, close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe; phone and ask.
For Sandhurst people, the short version
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Kent, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway — so leave it off and ring 0333 366 0103.