Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Green Tye
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then put this page down a moment, leave the ignition and motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, done just where your vehicle sits around Green Tye, is normally what it takes when found before the engine runs. Reading before the event? In that case the rest covers how it happens and how to prevent it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
No single liquid but two: that's what many modern diesels near Green Tye and South-end run, with diesel for your engine. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank has a filler of its own. Many of motors have a single flap for the two, while others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. Much less regularly, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. It's in that gap that the error happens.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Green Tye: how it happens
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Ducketts Lane, perhaps outside The Prince of Wales on the way home after work.
New-to-you vehicles are next, too. Rentals, new motors and company vehicles place their fillers in new places, and the hand goes for the cap used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once begun, carries on. Perry Green or the heart of Green Tye: it takes the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Green Tye forecourt or a drive over in Much Hadham, take a couple of seconds on these before any goes in.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Many vehicles give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Look inside the fuel flap: many vehicles carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Bishops Stortford.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
The day the light comes on, wherever in Hertfordshire, follow this routine.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of Parsonage Lane.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- Both behind one flap? Then make sure the cap on the diesel filler stays closed before raising the bottle.
- Stop once that tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour gently using the own spout.
- Close the cap, then check once more — confirm your diesel cap stayed closed throughout. After that, start the car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Never go on to stage five.
Green Tye: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Do not start the engine: that is how the short order of things begins. Do not switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel will not dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the bottom of the tank, right where the fuel is drawn from.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it is the the nearest petrol station or the Sainsbury, ask the attendants to help push the vehicle away from the petrol pump. Your own drive around Green Tye is where it stays.
Where the motor has run by now, pull over somewhere safe and switch the vehicle off. On the M11, under 5 miles from Green Tye, that means the next exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Chelmsford, under 25 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Green Tye.
Our arrival in Green Tye, and what occurs next
Anywhere the car has stopped, be it by St Andrew's CE Primary School and Nursery, beside St Thomas’ Mission Hall or at home, the van travels to it. Those answers settle this work and our price, and so our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has run. You get that quote by phone, before anybody sets off.
Then the tank is cleared and the system flushed thoroughly. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and none of it washes away by itself. Hence it matters more. The filter cleaned or, where it must be, swapped; clean diesel in; then a check of the vehicle. Next we fire it up and check it runs properly before we go.
If the engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Green Tye
Green Tye is a small village in Hertfordshire, situated near the River Lea and close to the villages of Perry Green and Allens Green. Green Tye has a population of around 514 people and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Green Tye sits at an elevation of 92 metres, within the gently rolling countryside of the Eastern region, and is located approximately 25 miles from London. Green Tye is also near the larger settlement of Hadham Cross and the city of Chelmsford, which is 18 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Hertfordshire, Green Tye included
Over SG postcodes, our vans that cover Green Tye — a village — work the nearby locations too, Hadham Cross and Allens Green included. Fastest of all: quote a SG10 6 postcode for our van.
The vehicle does not need to shift. Draining takes place on the spot, whether a driveway, a road near St Thomas, or a layby on the way to Great Hadham Golf Course. Assuming won't help behind Square Form with Cut, close to a border, or somewhere hard to pin down; phone and ask.
For Green Tye motorists, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it sits, anywhere in Hertfordshire.