Woodnesborough: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave your engine and ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Normally, when the engine has not run, it's emptied and fully flushed where the vehicle sits in Woodnesborough. The remainder of this page explains why it happens and how to ensure it does not — useful if you are reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
No single fluid but two: that is what many modern diesels near Woodnesborough and Each End run, with diesel for the engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust gas and cleans it.
There is a filler on every tank. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up constantly. Much less often, the AdBlue side is filled — normally from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens in Woodnesborough
It is seldom 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, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Woodland Way before work, or in the car park outside the pub in the village on the way home.
Then your car is new. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Lastly, the bottle fits: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in as readily, and after the pour starts, no part halts it. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Woodnesborough or out in Marshborough.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Whether a Woodnesborough forecourt or a drive over in Coombe, spend a few seconds on these before any is poured in.
- Read the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally aren't.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the flap and look for a label — many cars show what goes in which inlet just there.
- The handbook says where it lives when your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Sandwich? Ask whoever drove it last before leaving, rather than once the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
Wherever around Kent the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Melville Lea, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park then switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Discover during the second or third stage that the bottle went in the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Stage five is out.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Woodnesborough?
Short list, then. Top of that: the motor stays unstarted. The fuel pump starts on many diesels as soon as your ignition goes on — and so keep it off. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
On a forecourt — Gulf, Shell or another — the attendants will normally help roll the car clear, if you ask. If you are on your own driveway around Woodnesborough, leave the vehicle where it stands.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Leave the M20 — under 15 miles out of Woodnesborough — at the next exit. A short hop across Woodnesborough is a smaller job than a run towards Canterbury, under 15 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our engineers get there around Woodnesborough, what happens?
Our engineers come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Sandwich Junior School, close to Woodnesborough Village Hall or on your own drive. Both the work and our price rest on three replies — which fluid, what quantity, and if it's run — so our engineers ask. On the phone call itself, you hear the price — ahead of dispatch.
Emptying that tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Your engine is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs smoothly, all before our technicians head off.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after we get there, as long as the motor has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet after dark beside a house. No money upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Woodnesborough and where it is
Woodnesborough is a small village in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of 18 metres, and is located approximately 10 miles from Canterbury. Woodnesborough has a population of around 777 residents, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type. Woodnesborough is close to nearby places such as Marshborough and Stone Cross, and is about 64 miles from London. Woodnesborough remains a quiet residential community with a rural character.
AdBlue drains in Woodnesborough and across Kent
Over CT postcodes, our teams that cover Woodnesborough — a rural village — work the nearby places too, Stone Cross and Poulders Gardens included. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting CT13 0.
Your car remains put. We drain it where it is — a side street near St Mary The Blessed Virgin Church, a lay-by on the way to Eastry Picnic Site, a driveway. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Sandwich Wildlife Park.
In short, for Woodnesborough motorists
Always, the cap; after that, the pour. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Kent, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — and so leave it off and call 0333 366 0103.