Battlers Green: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, carried out just where the vehicle sits in Battlers Green, is usually what it takes if found before the motor runs. Here in advance? In that case the rest explains why it happens and how to stop it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Diesel goes to the motor — yet many newer diesels driven around Battlers Green and High Cross carry a second fluid too. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that's the arrangement on a lot of cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. Much less frequently, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. It's in the gap that the error lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur in Battlers Green?
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Common Lane before work, or in the car park at The Three Horseshoes on the way home.
Then, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — because a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not.
A spout-topped bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, after begun, keeps on. Whether it takes place in Batlers Green or the middle of Battlers Green, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Whether a Battlers Green forecourt or a drive over in Round Bush, take a few seconds on these before anything goes in.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- On many motors, the size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of vehicles have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- Cannot see it beside your diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or in the boot — the handbook says where.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Radlett, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
When the light comes on, wherever across Hertfordshire, use this routine.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of New Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two share a flap, confirm it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Tip 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 the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Don't go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Battlers Green already?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting the motor. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch it on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the staff to help roll your car clear of the petrol pump if you're at a forecourt — the Costco, the Asda or anywhere else. On your own drive around Battlers Green? Then the car remains put.
Where your motor has run already, stop safely then switch it off. Come off the M1 — under 3 miles out of Battlers Green — at the next exit. About how far did it go? Hopping across Battlers Green is smaller work than a trip of under 10 miles towards St Albans, and so say.
Our arrival in Battlers Green, and what occurs next
Anywhere your car came to rest, whether by Fair Field Junior School, near Letchmore Heath War Memorial or at home, our van travels to it. What liquid went in, the amount, and whether it ran: our engineers ask because the answers set the work and price. That price comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Then that tank is emptied and the fuel system flushed thoroughly. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of it washes out unaided. That is why it counts more. The filter flushed or, where needed, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a test of your vehicle. Before we leave, we fire it up and confirm that it is running correctly.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your engine hasn't run take about half an hour once our technicians are there. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. While we travel, have a look at your insurance documents; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Battlers Green and where it is
Battlers Green is a suburban area in Hertfordshire, situated approximately 14.4 miles northwest of London and 5.5 miles southeast of St Albans. Battlers Green has a population of around 1518 people and is characterised by semi-detached housing. Battlers Green sits at an elevation of 106 metres, in a gently undulating inland landscape. Battlers Green is close to nearby places such as Letchmore Heath and is often associated with the similarly named Batlers Green.
AdBlue drains around Battlers Green, and Hertfordshire beyond
As a residential suburb, Battlers Green has the same vans as surrounding places — Kemprow, Letchmore Heath — all the way across WD postcodes and the wider area around them. A postcode starting WD7 8 gets the van to you fastest.
The vehicle does not need to move. The drain takes place right there, whether a driveway, a street by Bhaktivedanta Manor, or a lay-by on the way to Phillimore Recreation Grounds. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Aldenham School Fives Courts, ring and ask instead of guessing.
The short version for Battlers Green motorists
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave it off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, throughout Hertfordshire.