AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Windmill Hill: Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Around Windmill Hill, catching it before your motor turns normally leaves a drain and a full flush where it stands. The remainder of this page covers why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't — handy if you're reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Diesel feeds your motor — but many current diesels seen around Windmill Hill and Kings Farm carry another fluid too. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to fresh them, from a separate tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Some cars put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more have both together behind one flap. Filling the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. Far less commonly, the AdBlue side is filled — normally from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place in Windmill Hill
It's rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the vehicle, and running dry leads to limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Leith Park Road, perhaps at The Echo on the way home after work.
The old car's cap is where your hand goes — yet a hire car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is a second thing: an unfamiliar vehicle.
Nothing stops 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 a few seconds, whether out in Westcourt or bang in the heart of Windmill Hill.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Denton or a forecourt around Windmill Hill, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- On plenty of vehicles, the size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- A label inside your fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on many cars. Check for it.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Gravesend? Ask the person who drove the car last before leaving, rather than once the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — anywhere it is across Kent — a simple routine to use.
- Pull in somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Constitution Hill.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It seems daft. It does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Find at step two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop just there. Never go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Windmill Hill already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your motor. Leave the ignition off too, since on plenty of diesels it alone starts your fuel pump. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the base rather than blending — and that is where your fuel is drawn from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it's the Esso or the Texaco, ask the attendants to help push the vehicle away from the petrol pump. At home in Windmill Hill? So the vehicle remains where it is.
Already run? Pull over when it's safe, then switch off. The next junction is where to leave if you are on the M2, under 5 miles from Windmill Hill. Mileage counts — a short hop across Windmill Hill is a smaller job than heading under 25 miles to Southend-on-Sea — so tell us about how far it went.
What happens when our engineers get there around Windmill Hill
Anywhere your car came to rest, be it by Holy Trinity Church of England Primary School, near Christ Church Milton or on your own drive, our van comes to it. The replies decide this work and our quote, so we ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it's run. You hear that price by phone, before anybody heads out.
Then your tank is drained and your system purged 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 does not wash out on its own. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Before we go, our engineers fire it up and make sure that it is running properly.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour after our technicians get there, provided your engine hasn't run — and the pumps we use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. No money upfront; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. Misfuelling cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Windmill Hill, briefly
Windmill Hill is a suburban area in Kent, situated near the coast and approximately 22 miles from London. Windmill Hill has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly characterized by terraced homes. Windmill Hill is close to several nearby places, including Westcourt, Milton, and Gravesend, and is about 16 miles from the city of Southend-on-Sea. Windmill Hill sits at an elevation of around 38 metres above sea level.
Windmill Hill and Kent: AdBlue drains across the area
As a residential suburb, Windmill Hill shares its vans surrounding areas — Milton, Gravesend — right through DA postcodes and the wider area beyond. A postcode starting DA12 1 gets the van to you fastest.
The car doesn't need to shift. The drain happens right there, whether a drive, a street by Old Gravesendians Association, or a lay-by on the way to the green space at the edge of the village. Guessing doesn't help behind Guru Nanak Sports Club, on a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe; ring and check.
In short, for Windmill Hill drivers
Read the cap before you pour. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere in Kent, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — and so leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.