Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Teston: Why It Occurs
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? In that case put this page down for now, leave the ignition and engine off, then phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Teston. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel feeds your engine — yet many current diesels driven about Teston and West Farleigh hold another liquid too. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler for every tank. Many of motors have a single flap for the two, whereas others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is fuelled at the petrol pump all the time. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. It is in the gap that the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur around Teston?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from your car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Courtlands, perhaps at Waterbury on the way home after work.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — but a hire car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That's the second thing: a new motor.
No part stops the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Teston or out in Livesey Street.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Whether a Teston forecourt or a driveway over in Hoppers Corner, spend a couple of seconds on these before any goes in.
- Read the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — many cars mark which goes in which inlet right there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Wateringbury.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Kent that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Readers Court.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Find at stage two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop just there. Never go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Teston already?
Brief order, then. Top of it: your engine stays unstarted. Leave your ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels it alone starts the pump. Filling up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the base of that tank, just where fuel is taken from.
At a forecourt — JET, Esso or any other — the staff will normally help push the vehicle away, if you ask. If you're on your own driveway in Teston, leave the vehicle where it is.
When the motor has run already, stop safely then turn it off. The next junction means the place to leave if you are on the M20, under 5 miles from Teston. About how far did it go? Crossing Teston is less work than a trip of under 25 miles to Southend-on-Sea, so tell us.
When our technicians arrive around Teston, what happens?
Anywhere the vehicle came to rest, be it outside Wateringbury Church of England Primary School, beside Teston Village Hall or on your own drive, the van travels to it. The replies decide this work and our price, and so we ask what went in, about how much, and whether it's run. Nobody sets off until you've heard the quote over the phone.
The system is then purged thoroughly, after your tank is emptied. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. Testing comes at the end: before that, clean diesel is added, and the filter is flushed or changed if necessary. The motor is fired up next and tested to be sure it runs properly, all before our engineers go.
If your motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once the job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. It is worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Teston and where it is
Teston is a village situated on the River Medway in Kent, with a riverside setting and an elevation of around 55 metres. Teston lies approximately 30 miles from London and is close to the nearby settlements of Livesey Street and Wateringbury. Teston has a population of around 636 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Teston is also near to Red Hill and the city of Southend-on-Sea, which is about 22.8 miles away.
AdBlue drains about Teston, and Kent beyond
Over ME postcodes, our vans that cover Teston — a village — work the surrounding locations too, Wateringbury and Red Hill included. Give a postcode beginning ME18 5, and our van arrives fastest.
The vehicle doesn't need to move. The drain happens right there, be it a driveway, a street by Teston Parish Church, or a layby on the way to The Grove. Assuming doesn't help at the back of Wateringbury Village Hall, close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe; phone and ask.
Teston drivers: the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere around Kent, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway — and so leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.