How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Chaulden
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then put this page aside a moment, keep your ignition and motor off, then call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Chaulden. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Plenty of current diesels on the roads around Chaulden and Winkwell carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust gas and cleans it.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in on every forecourt visit, again and again. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. The mistake lives in that gap.
Chaulden: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
Hurry follows from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off Long Chaulden, or on the way home in the car park outside The Tudor Rose.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
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 once it has started. It's seconds, whether in Green End or right in the heart of Chaulden.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Look at these first, on a forecourt around Chaulden or a drive over in Boxmoor. A few seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually isn't. Read it instead of going by position.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows which it is if the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver will know. Ask as you collect a rental or fleet car — at Hemel Hempstead's car park, say — not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
For the day the light comes on — wherever you are around Hertfordshire — a simple routine to follow.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of Pixies Hill Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- Both under a single flap? So confirm the lid on the diesel side is still shut before raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Leave out stage five entirely.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Chaulden?
Brief list, then. First: the engine stays off. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels as soon as your ignition goes on — and so leave it off. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the attendants to help roll the car clear of the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Middlesex and Herts Boat Services Fuel Pump, the Shell or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around Chaulden.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Leave the M1 — under 5 miles out of Chaulden — at the first exit. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Chaulden is a smaller job than heading under 10 miles towards St Albans — so tell us roughly how far it went.
What takes place when we get there around Chaulden
Outside Pixies Hill Primary School, near St Stephen or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. The answers determine this work and our quote, so our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. On the phone call itself, you hear our price — before anything else.
Then that tank is drained and the fuel system flushed thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and none of that washes out by itself. That is why it counts more. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Next our engineers start the car and check it runs correctly before we leave.
If the engine has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Chaulden, briefly
Chaulden is a suburban area in Hertfordshire, situated near the River Ver and close to the city of St Albans. Chaulden sits at an elevation of around 112 metres, with nearby neighbourhoods including Green End, Pouchen End, and Counters End. Chaulden is characterized by its predominantly terraced housing stock, and is located approximately 23 miles from central London. Chaulden has a population of around 4830 residents.
AdBlue drains across Hertfordshire, Chaulden included
Chaulden is a residential suburb, and our vans that cover it also work the places around it, Pouchen End and Counters End among them, across the HP postcode area. Quickest of all: give a HP1 2 postcode to the van.
No need to move the vehicle. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Chaulden Lane Recreation Ground, a side street near St George's United Reformed Church: we drain the car where it is. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Hemel Hempstead Methodist Church, ring and ask instead of guessing.
The short version for Chaulden people
First, the cap; after that, the pour. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave it switched off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across Hertfordshire.