How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Thanington
Keep your engine and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Around Thanington, catching it before the engine turns normally leaves a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
No single fluid but two: that is how plenty of newer diesels around Thanington and Rough Common run, with diesel feeding your motor. AdBlue goes to your 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 cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled on every filling station call-out, again and again. The AdBlue side is filled far less often, normally from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake grows in the gap between the two.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Thanington: how it takes place
It's rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Ashenden Close before work, or in the car park outside Floc on the way home.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part halts the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's seconds, whether in Harbledown or right in the centre of Thanington.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Upper Harbledown or a forecourt around Thanington, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Plenty of vehicles give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of motors carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it lives when your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Canterbury East? Ask whoever drove it last before you set off, rather than when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
On the day the light comes on — wherever you are in Kent — a routine to use.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Alfred Close.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Finish once your tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; before that, pour slowly using its own spout.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the 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.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Thanington?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting your engine. Leave your ignition off as well, since on many diesels it alone runs your fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it is the Morrisons or the Esso, ask the attendants to help push the car away from the petrol pump. Your own driveway in Thanington is the place it should stay.
Already run? Stop once it is sensible, then switch off. Thanington lies under 10 miles from the M2; on it, use the first exit. A short hop across Thanington is a smaller job than a run towards Canterbury, under 3 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Thanington: what happens when we turn up
The van comes to the vehicle wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, near St. Nicholas, or outside Wincheap Foundation Primary School. Both the work and our price rest on three answers — what liquid, which quantity, and whether it's run — so our engineers ask. No one sets off until you have heard the quote by phone.
Then that tank is drained and the system rinsed thoroughly. 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. Once the filter is flushed — or replaced, if needed — clean diesel goes in, and finally the car is tested. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running properly.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor hasn't run need roughly half an hour after our technicians arrive. No money upfront; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Thanington and where it is
Thanington is a suburban area located on the River Stour in Kent, sitting at an elevation of 28 metres and adjacent to the city of Canterbury. Thanington is characterized by its semi-detached housing stock and is situated near other local places such as Harbledown and St Dunstans. Thanington has a population of approximately 2396 residents and is within walking distance of Canterbury's city centre. Thanington is also relatively close to London, being around 53.6 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Kent, Thanington included
St Dunstans and Canterbury are among the towns near Thanington, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, throughout CT postcodes. Quote a postcode beginning CT1 3, and our van arrives quickest.
Your car remains where it is. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Kingdom Hall of Jehovahs Witnesses, a lay-by on the way to Larkey Valley Wood, a drive. Guessing doesn't help at the back of Stonework Ruins at Toniford Manor, on a boundary, or somewhere hard to pin down; phone and check.
For Thanington motorists, the short version
Pour no AdBlue till you've read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it wherever it stands, anywhere in Kent: switch the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.