Church End: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave the engine and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Normally, if the engine has not run, it's emptied and thoroughly purged where the vehicle is around Church End. Here before the event? In that case what follows explains why it comes about and how to prevent it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Many newer diesels on the roads about Church End and Pitstone Hill carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to fresh them, from a separate tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of cars share a single flap for both, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side gets filled constantly. Much less frequently, the AdBlue side is topped up — normally from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs around Church End
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
On a driveway off Vicarage Road before work, or in the car park at The Rose and Crown on the way home: that's where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and once it is empty, limp mode kicks in.
New-to-you motors come next, too. Rentals, new vehicles and company vehicles put their fillers differently, and the hand reaches for the cap used on the old one.
No part halts the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Church End or out in Pitstone Green.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A few seconds is all these take — so check them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Bulbourne or a forecourt in Church End.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on many cars. Look for it.
- The handbook shows where it is if the filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Tring? Ask whoever drove it last before leaving, rather than when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Buckinghamshire that is.
- Pull in on level, motor off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Tun Furlong.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, yet it works.
- The diesel cap remains on. When the two share a flap, make sure it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Do not go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Church End already?
Short list, then. First: your motor stays off. The fuel pump starts on many diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — so keep it off. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
At a forecourt — Shell, Texaco or any other — the staff will normally help roll the car away, if you ask. If you are on your own driveway in Church End, leave it where it sits.
Already started? Stop once it is sensible, then switch off. Church End lies under 10 miles from the M1; there, use the first exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards St Albans, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Church End.
When we turn up in Church End, what takes place?
The van reaches your car wherever it stopped — your own driveway, near Pitstone Green Museum, or outside Brookmead School. What fluid was put in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our engineers ask because the answers set the work and price. During the call itself, you are told the quote — ahead of anything else.
Next: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. More than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: crystals build up, certain metals are attacked, and none of it clears away unaided, no matter how long it is left. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Your engine is fired up next and checked to be sure it runs correctly, all before we leave.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine has not run need roughly half an hour once we are there. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours once the job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. It is worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Church End
Church End is a suburban area in Buckinghamshire, situated inland at an elevation of around 128 metres. Church End lies approximately 30.9 miles northwest of London and 13.6 miles east of St Albans, near the villages of Pitstone Green, Pitstone, and Ivinghoe. Church End has a population of around 910 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing.
Church End and Buckinghamshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Church End is a residential suburb, and our teams that cover it also work the places around it, Pitstone and Ivinghoe among them, across the LU postcode area. Quickest of all: quote a LU7 9 postcode for the van.
There's no need to shift your car. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Pitstone Recreation Ground, a side street near Ivinghoe Library: our engineers drain the car where it stands. Guessing won't help at the back of St Mary's The Virgin Church, Ivinghoe, close to a boundary, or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and ask.
The short version for Church End motorists
Read the cap before you tip. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave the car off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it waits, anywhere around Buckinghamshire.