Napsbury Park: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave your engine and ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out just where your vehicle sits around Napsbury Park, is usually all it takes when found before the motor runs. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the page explains the why it takes place and the how to avoid it altogether.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Many newer diesels on the roads about Napsbury Park and Tyttenhanger carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, and there a spray cleans the fumes.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on many vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. Far less frequently, the AdBlue side gets topped up — normally from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. It's in that gap that the error happens.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Napsbury Park: how it takes place
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the car, and letting it run out means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Shenley Lane, perhaps at The Green Dragon on the way home after work.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — yet a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That's the second factor: a new motor.
Nothing halts the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. London Colney or the heart of Napsbury Park: it takes the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Frogmore or a forecourt in Napsbury Park, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually do not.
- On plenty of vehicles, size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside the fuel flap: many motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Park Street, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Hertfordshire that is.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Napsbury Avenue.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — after you've located the filler and read the cap.
- The diesel cap remains on. When the two sit under 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.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop just there. Leave out stage five entirely.
Napsbury Park: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with not starting the motor. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of your tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it is the Sainsbury's or the Shell, ask the staff to help roll your car away from the pump. On your own drive around Napsbury Park? So your car remains where it is.
Already run? Pull over when it is sensible, then turn off. Leave the M25 — under a mile out of Napsbury Park — at the next exit. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Napsbury Park is a smaller job than driving under 3 miles towards St Albans — so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival around Napsbury Park, and what occurs next
The van comes to your car anywhere it stopped — your own driveway, near London Colney Community Centre, or outside Bowmansgreen Primary School. Which liquid went in, the amount, and if it ran: our engineers ask because the answers decide both work and price. No one heads out until you've heard our price over the phone.
The fuel system is then cleaned thoroughly, once the tank is cleared. 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 matters more. Once your filter is flushed — or renewed, where needed — clean diesel goes in, and then the car gets tested. After that we start the engine and confirm it runs properly before we leave.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once we arrive, as long as the engine has not run — and the pumps we use are safe on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. No money upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Napsbury Park itself
Napsbury Park is a small hamlet in Hertfordshire, situated near the city of St Albans and close to the villages of London Colney and Napsbury. Napsbury Park sits in a low-lying area at an elevation of around 83 metres, within the commuter belt of London. Napsbury Park has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly characterised by terraced homes. Napsbury Park is located near the larger settlement of Broad Colney, and is part of the wider St Albans urban area.
AdBlue drains across Hertfordshire, Napsbury Park included
Throughout AL postcodes, the vans that cover Napsbury Park — a rural hamlet — work the nearby spots too, Broad Colney and Napsbury included. Quote a postcode that starts AL2 1, and our van gets there quickest.
Shifting the vehicle is not necessary. Wherever it stands — beside London Colney Community Library, on a lay-by en route to Coppice Wood, on a drive — that is where it is emptied. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Cotlandswick Leisure Centre? By a county line? Asking is better than assuming, and so ring.
The short version for Napsbury Park drivers
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep the car off and phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, across Hertfordshire.