Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Potten End
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and your ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, carried out right where the car sits around Potten End, is normally all it takes when found before the motor runs. Not happened yet? Further down, the page covers the why it occurs and the ways to prevent it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Not one liquid but two: that is how plenty of modern diesels around Potten End and Warners End carry, with diesel for your motor. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, where spraying treats the gas.
Different tanks, different fillers. Many of motors have a single flap for the two, while others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. Far less often, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place in Potten End?
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things coming up together.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from your car, and running out means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off The Common, perhaps at Martins Pond on the way home that evening.
Next, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old car — since a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
No part stops 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. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Potten End or out in Frithsden.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Pouchen End or a forecourt around Potten End, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- Many motors fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of motors have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Cannot see it next to the diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or inside the boot — the owner's manual will say where.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check as you pick up a rental or company car — at Berkhamsted's car park, perhaps — rather than once the warning appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
Wherever across Hertfordshire the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Church Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, yes, yet it works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Stop once your tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour slowly using the built-in spout.
- Before you start the car, close the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap never came off.
Spot at step two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? Then stop right there. Leave out stage five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Potten End?
Do not start the motor: that's where the short order of things starts. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the Esso or the Middlesex and Herts Boat Services Fuel Pump, ask the attendants to help push the car away from the pump. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Potten End.
When the motor has run by now, pull over safely then turn the vehicle off. On the M1, under 5 miles from Potten End, that means the next junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards St Albans, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Potten End.
Our arrival around Potten End, and what takes place next
Wherever the vehicle came to rest, whether outside Potten End CofE Primary School, near Holy Trinity or at home, our van comes to it. Both the work and our price depend on three replies — what fluid, what amount, and whether it has run — so our technicians ask. No one heads out until you have heard our quote by phone.
Emptying your tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither clears away unaided. Hence it counts more. The filter flushed or, where it must be, replaced; fresh diesel in; and then a test of your vehicle. The motor is fired up next and checked to confirm it runs smoothly, all before we go.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor hasn't run take about half an hour after we arrive. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Potten End and where it is
Potten End is a small village in Hertfordshire, situated inland at an elevation of around 167 metres, approximately 24.9 miles northwest of London. Potten End lies near the Chiltern Hills, close to the villages of Frithsden and Nettleden, and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Potten End is a residential community with a population of around 1270 people, and is located near the city of St Albans, which is about 8.1 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Hertfordshire, Potten End included
As a rural village, Potten End has the same vans as nearby areas — Fields End, Nettleden — right through HP postcodes and the wider area around them. Quickest of all: give a HP4 2 postcode for the van.
The car doesn't need to move. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Potten End Village Hall, a lay-by on the way to Potten End Sports Field, a driveway. Guessing doesn't help behind WW2 Anti-tank Bollards, on a border, or somewhere hard to pin down; phone and ask.
For Potten End people, the short version
Always, the cap; after that, the tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Hertfordshire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — so leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103.