Green End: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Find Your Situation
All of it hinges on a single fact: if your motor has started after the AdBlue went in — more than anything else. Wherever your vehicle stands — Hammerfield, Green End — never run a motor that has not run yet. Phone 0333 366 0103 with the ignition and motor still off. In Green End, that is generally drained and flushed on the spot. If it's run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The job is bigger, but the first stage is the same.
Wherever across Hertfordshire it happened, one of the cases below fits yours.
AdBlue in a diesel on a Green End forecourt
Picture it: standing by the pump, gripping the bottle, you spot the cap you took off wasn't the correct one. Be it Shell, Texaco or anywhere else around Green End, the case is identical.
Put simply: there is no better place to be to discover it. The AdBlue is in that tank and nowhere else. Nothing has drawn it in.
Freeing the petrol pump is no excuse to run it — and so do not get back in. Have the staff to lend a hand pushing it into a bay, hold on to the bottle, then ring us from there. Can't move the car beside the pump? Our explosion-proof equipment makes a live forecourt sensible, and so it can be drained in place.
AdBlue in the diesel tank on a Green End drive?
For days the dashboard had been warning you. You bought a bottle, poured it in on the driveway, and only when you put the empty bottle in the recycling did you look again at the cap. Homes just off Northridge Way get hit as often as everywhere else.
The upshot: no miles since makes it almost equal to spotting it at the petrol pump. As it is reluctant to blend, AdBlue settles to the base in the tank and waits. A night standing changes none of that.
Put the keys indoors tonight — or a person might take it off first thing — then phone us. Your drive is where it gets drained, whether in Green End or Chaulden. Night-time clears outside a house are no problem: the pumps are low-noise.
Set off with AdBlue in a diesel in Green End?
You filled up, set off, and a mile or two later your engine began to run unevenly, smoke, lose power or light up the dashboard. Maybe it was on Upper Sales, possibly on the way out towards St Albans, under 10 miles away.
Meaning? The fuel pump has sucked the AdBlue up. It's been through the fuel filter and your lines and, the further you went, into the high-pressure pump and the injectors. Each restart, like each mile, carries it on.
What to do: pull over where it is safe then switch off. On the M1, under 5 miles from Green End, that means the next exit, not the services further on. No test restarts: clearing isn't something AdBlue will do. Call, and say what distance your car was driven.
AdBlue in the wrong tank of a hire, lease or company car
It is a car you have had for a week. Your own vehicle either has no AdBlue or keeps it elsewhere, and so nothing told you the AdBlue cap was just next to your diesel. Wherever you happen to be in Hertfordshire, every driver could be caught.
The upshot: just as above, divided by if it ran, only with one added step. Many hire and company contracts require the owner's approval for repairs.
Next: ring the rental company or your fleet manager first, and then us — sorting it before we arrive is faster. If you are stranded in the car park at Hemel Hempstead, or by Hemel Hempstead Methodist Church, whilst you wait for an answer, leave the vehicle off.
Not sure it was AdBlue in the diesel tank, Green End?
Now and then, "I think so" is the most you can honestly say. Lighter, that bottle; a hint of ammonia round your filler; a hazy memory of the cap. Look familiar? Perhaps it happened in a hurry at the school gates at Oakleaf Primary, or on a friend's drive in Pouchen End.
The point: your engine is not hurt by a little AdBlue splashed around the outside. A diesel tank with AdBlue inside is another story. Firing up the car won't tell you which, and if there is AdBlue in that tank it would draw it in.
What to do: treat it as if it went in. Do not start the car. Phone and give the details: we would sooner confirm a tank free of AdBlue than empty one after the engine has run.
The common ground in each Green End AdBlue drain
The work opens the same way, whichever the case. Filling station, drive, The Grapes's car park or a road by St Stephen — our van comes to the vehicle, and three answers come next: what fluid, what amount, and if it has run. Those replies determine the work, and you hear our price by phone, before anybody heads out.
A thorough flush follows the drain. With petrol it is standard; with AdBlue it's essential, because deposits build up and certain metals corrode, and none of it rinses out unaided. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Most unstarted vehicles are a half-hour visit from the moment our engineers arrive.
The final step is starting the engine. Our test that it runs correctly on fresh diesel comes before our engineers go. Our engineers do the whole job where the vehicle is, and lasting damage is very unusual if it has been caught soon. 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 are on the way.
About Green End itself
Green End is a suburban area in Hertfordshire, situated near the River Ver and close to the city of St Albans. Green End has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly made up of terraced homes, and is located about 6.7 miles from St Albans. Green End sits at an elevation of around 103 metres, and is part of the wider commuter belt around London, which is approximately 23 miles away. Green End is near other local places such as Chaulden and Boxmoor.
AdBlue drains across Hertfordshire, Green End included
Green End is a residential suburb, and the same vans that cover it work the places near it too, Counters End and Boxmoor among them, across the HP postcode area. Fastest of all: a HP1 2 postcode to show your location.
Parked en route to Northridge Park, or bang in the heart of Green End, the car stays where it is — there is no need to shift it anywhere. Wherever it sits, that is where it gets cleared. Awkward to pin down? Close to St George's United Reformed Church or a county line? Checking is better than assuming, and so phone.
Your situation, in one line
Not run yet: keep it off and ring. Run by now: stop, switch down, phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, within Green End or wherever in Hertfordshire.