Round Green: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and the ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Round Green. The rest of this page explains why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels around Luton, like those in Round Green, run on two liquids; the engine gets only the diesel. The exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the gas to clean them, from its own tank.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Many of vehicles have a single flap for the two, whereas some move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled on each filling station call-out, week in, week out. The AdBlue side is filled far less regularly, normally from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in that gap that the mistake happens.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Round Green: how it happens
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things coming up together.
On a drive off Ramridge Road before work, or in the car park at The Jolly Topers on the way home: that's where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it's empty, limp mode follows.
New-to-you vehicles come second, too. Rentals, new vehicles and company vehicles place their fillers in new places, and the hand reaches for the cap used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, once begun, keeps on. Whether it happens in Hart Hill or the middle of Round Green, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Whether a Round Green forecourt or a driveway out in Wigmore, spend a couple of seconds on these before any goes in.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually aren't.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Check for it.
- The handbook says which it is when the filler isn't next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Luton, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
When the light goes on, anywhere around Bedfordshire, follow this routine.
- Not in a rush on the side of Hitchin Road, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park then switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, yet it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two sit under a flap, make sure it's shut before lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and look once more — making sure the diesel cap stayed closed the whole time. Only then, start your car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Skip step five altogether.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Round Green already?
Short list, then. First: the motor stays unstarted. Do not switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is sucked from.
On a forecourt — Shell, Asda or another — the attendants will normally help roll the car clear, when you ask. At home around Round Green? Then your car stays where it is.
Where the motor has been run already, pull over safely then switch the vehicle off. The next junction is the place to come off if you are on the M1, under 3 miles from Round Green. A short hop across Round Green is a smaller job than a run towards St Albans, under 15 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
When our engineers arrive in Round Green, what takes place?
Wherever your car has stopped, be it outside Ramridge Primary School, beside St Christophers Church or on your own drive, our van comes to it. The answers decide the work and the price, and so our engineers ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it's run. On the phone call itself, you hear our price — before anything else.
Draining that tank comes next, followed by a full flush of your system. More than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: the crystals build up, some metals are attacked, and none of that clears out unaided, no matter how long it sits. The filter cleaned or, where it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; then a test of the car. Next we start it and confirm it runs smoothly before we go.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine hasn't run take roughly half an hour after our technicians are there. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. It's worth checking your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Round Green itself
Round Green is a suburban area in Bedfordshire, situated approximately 10 miles from St Albans and 29 miles from London. Round Green occupies a relatively high elevation of 162 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Round Green is surrounded by other residential areas, including Hart Hill, Stopsley, and High Town, and is home to a population of around 10620 people.
AdBlue drains around Round Green and across Bedfordshire
Throughout LU postcodes, the vans that cover Round Green — a residential suburb — work the nearby places too, High Town and Stopsley included. Give a postcode beginning LU2 0, and the van gets there fastest.
Your car stays put. Wherever it sits — near Co-Op Luton Bowls Club, in a layby heading to The Chase, on a drive — that is where it gets drained. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Luton Indoor Bowls Club.
Round Green drivers: the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, throughout Bedfordshire.