AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Smeeth: Why It Happens and How to Avoid It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and your ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. In Smeeth, finding it before your engine turns usually leaves draining and a thorough flush on the spot. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
No single liquid but two: that's how plenty of newer diesels around Smeeth and Bircholt Forstal carry, with diesel feeding the motor. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to fresh it, from its own tank.
Different tanks, different fillers. Some motors put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place both side by side behind one flap. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, tipped by a driver who has to stop and think which filler to use. The mistake grows in the gap between the two.
Smeeth: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
It's seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the vehicle, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Church Road, or outside The Woolpack on the way home that evening.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip once it has started. It's seconds, be it in Ridgeway or bang in the centre of Smeeth.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt in Smeeth or a drive out in Stone Hill. A few seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually isn't. Read it instead of going by position.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of vehicles. Look for it.
- Can't find it next to the diesel inlet? Then check below the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook will say which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Westenhanger, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Anywhere in Kent the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Turn off once parked — flat ground, engine off, and not rushed beside Caroland Close on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- Both under a single flap? Then confirm the cap on the diesel filler is still closed ahead of raising the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Stage five is out.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Smeeth?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your engine. Keep your ignition off as well, since on many diesels it alone starts your pump. Topping up with diesel won't dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of that tank, right where fuel is taken from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it is the John Childs Garages or the Tesco, ask the attendants to help push the vehicle away from the pump. On your own drive in Smeeth? Then the vehicle stays where it is.
Already started? Pull over when it's safe, then turn off. Leave the M20 — under a mile out of Smeeth — at the next junction. Mileage matters — a short hop across Smeeth makes a smaller job than heading under 15 miles to Canterbury — so tell us roughly how far it went.
What takes place when our technicians get there around Smeeth
By Smeeth Community Primary School, close to St Mary the Virgin or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, we come to it. The answers settle this work and our price, and so our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. No one heads out until you have heard the price over the phone.
The fuel system is then cleaned thoroughly, after that tank is emptied. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that counts more here than with petrol. Once the filter has been cleaned — or renewed, where needed — fresh diesel is added, and then the vehicle gets tested. The engine is started next and tested to make sure it runs correctly, all before our engineers leave.
If your engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. No money upfront; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. It is worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Smeeth, for a moment
Smeeth is a small village in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of 89 metres, approximately 11.9 miles from Canterbury. Smeeth lies within a rural area, surrounded by nearby places such as Ridgeway, Brabourne Lees, and Lilyvale. Smeeth has a population of around 520 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing.
AdBlue drains about Smeeth, and Kent beyond
Brabourne Lees and Lilyvale are among the towns near Smeeth, a rural village, that the same teams cover, throughout TN postcodes. Fastest of all: give a TN25 6 postcode to our van.
No need to move the vehicle. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Dreamshapes Crafts, a lay-by on the way to The Walled Garden, a drive. Awkward to explain, like the back of Brabourne and Smeeth Village Hall? By a border? Checking beats assuming, and so ring.
For Smeeth motorists, the short version
Tip no AdBlue till you've read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across Kent.