Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Sundridge: Why It Occurs
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and your ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Sundridge. Reading before the event? Then what follows explains why it comes about and how to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Many newer diesels in Bessels Green, like those in Sundridge, carry on two fluids; your engine gets only the diesel. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank has a filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on many vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in your boot instead. At the petrol pump, the diesel side is topped up constantly. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, poured by a driver who has to stop and think what cap to use. It is in the gap that the error lives.
Sundridge: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Main Road before work, or in the car park outside White Horse on the way home.
The old car's filler is where your hand reaches — yet a hire car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That is the second thing: an unfamiliar vehicle.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip once it has started. Dryhill or the heart of Sundridge: it takes the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A few seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a drive in Chevening or a forecourt around Sundridge.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually don't.
- Many cars fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Check for it.
- Can't find it beside the diesel filler? Then check beneath the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook will say which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Dunton Green? Ask whoever drove the car last before leaving, rather than once the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
The day the light goes on, anywhere in Kent, use this routine.
- Pull in somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Church Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. When the two sit under a flap, make sure it is shut before the bottle comes up.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then look once more — confirm the diesel filler remained shut throughout. After that, start the car.
Find during the second or third step that the bottle went in the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Skip step five altogether.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Sundridge?
Brief order, then. Top of that: your engine stays off. Leave the ignition off too, because on many diesels it by itself runs the pump. Thinning it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue settles to the bottom instead of blending — and that's where your fuel is sucked from.
At a forecourt — Tesco, another forecourt nearby or any other — the staff will normally help push the car away, when you ask. Your own drive around Sundridge is the place it stays.
Already started? Pull over once it's sensible, then switch off. Sundridge lies under a mile from the M25; there, take the next junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards London, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Sundridge.
Our arrival around Sundridge, and what happens next
Our van comes to the vehicle anywhere it has come to rest — your own drive, beside St. Mary's, or outside Sundridge and Brasted Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School. What liquid was put in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our engineers ask since the replies decide the work and price. On the phone call itself, you are told our price — ahead of dispatch.
After that: a drain, then a full flush of the entire system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and neither washes out by itself. Hence it matters more. Testing comes last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the filter is flushed or replaced as needed. The engine is fired up next and checked to be sure it runs properly, all before our engineers go.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine hasn't run need about half an hour after we arrive. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It is worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Sundridge itself
Sundridge is a village in Kent, situated lakeside in the South East of England, with an elevation of 86 metres. Sundridge lies close to several nearby places, including Dryhill, Brasted, and Chipstead, and is approximately 19 miles from London. Sundridge has a population of around 835 people and is characterised by semi-detached housing. Sundridge is a small community on the outskirts of London, with the city's influence evident in its development.
AdBlue drains round Sundridge, and Kent beyond
Sundridge is a village, and our vans that cover it also work the places around it, Brasted and Chipstead among them, across the TN postcode area. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting TN14 6.
Your car stays put. Wherever it stands — beside Earn, on a lay-by en route to Radnor House sports field, on a drive — that is where it gets cleared. Assuming doesn't help at the back of Paterson Clarence Hughes Memorial Stone, on a boundary, or somewhere awkward to describe; phone and ask.
For Sundridge drivers, the short version
First, the cap; then, the tip. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere in Kent, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway — and so leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103.