How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in West Malling
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around West Malling. 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.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Not one liquid but two: that is how plenty of newer diesels near West Malling and Well Street carry, with diesel for your engine. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where a spray treats the gas.
There is a filler on each tank. Many of cars share a single flap for both, whereas others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Topping up your diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. Much less often, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. That gap is where the slip lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place around West Malling
Carelessness rarely causes it. Instead is three things coming up together.
On a driveway off Swan Street before work, or in the car park outside Joiners Arms on the way home: that's where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car tells you, and once it's empty, limp mode follows.
Next, the hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old motor — since a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
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 pour after it has started. New Town or the heart of West Malling: it takes the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Mill Street or a forecourt in West Malling, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Plenty of cars fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Look inside your fuel flap: many motors carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler is if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at the nearest station.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
On the day the light comes on — anywhere it is across Kent — a routine to follow.
- Not in a rush on the side of King Street, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park then switch off properly.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, yet it works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both share a flap, confirm it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Don't carry on to step five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in West Malling?
Do not start your engine: that is where the short order of things begins. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment your ignition is switched on — and so leave it off. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, since AdBlue settles to the bottom instead of mixing — and that is where your fuel is drawn from.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it's the BP or the Esso, ask the staff to help roll your car away from the pump. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around West Malling.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Leave the M20 — under 3 miles out of West Malling — at the first exit. Distance matters — a quick hop across West Malling makes a smaller job than heading under 25 miles to Southend-on-Sea — so say about how far it went.
Our arrival around West Malling, and what occurs next
Anywhere the vehicle has stopped, be it by West Malling Church of England Primary School and McGinty Speech and Language Srp, near West Malling Library or at home, our van travels to it. We ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it's run, because the answers determine the work and our price. That price comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Then that tank is drained and the system rinsed thoroughly. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. Filter flushed or, where needed, swapped; fresh diesel in; then a test of your car. Before we go, we fire it up and check that it is running smoothly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after our engineers arrive, as long as your engine hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet at night beside a house. 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 policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About West Malling, for a moment
West Malling is a town in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of 49 metres, and is located approximately 27 miles from London. West Malling has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are predominant, and the town is near several other communities, including New Town and Leybourne. West Malling is also close to the larger urban area of Southend-on-Sea, which is about 21 miles away. West Malling has a population of around 5192 people, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains about West Malling, and Kent beyond
St Leonards Street and Leybourne are among the towns near West Malling, a town, that the same vans cover, throughout ME postcodes. Quote a postcode that starts ME19 6, and the van gets there quickest.
There's no need to shift your car. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to West Malling Baptist Church, a lay-by on the way to The Village Green, a driveway. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Barn Chapel.
West Malling motorists: the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, anywhere around Kent: switch the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103.