Rye Park: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Around Rye Park, catching it before the motor runs normally means draining and a full flush where it stands. The rest of this page covers why it takes place and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Not one fluid but two: that is what many newer diesels around Rye Park and Dobbs Weir run, with diesel feeding your motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
Every tank comes with a filler of its own. Plenty of cars have a single flap for both, while others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at every forecourt call-out, again and again. Much less regularly, the AdBlue side is filled — normally from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Rye Park
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things lining up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Walton Road before work, or in the car park outside The Rye House on the way home.
The old car's filler is where your hand reaches — but a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That is a second thing: a strange car.
Lastly, the bottle goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in as easily, and once the tip begins, nothing halts it. Glen Faba or the heart of Rye Park: it is 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 Woollensbrook or a forecourt around Rye Park, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- Plenty of vehicles fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Check inside the fuel flap: plenty of vehicles carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The previous driver will know. Check as you collect a rental or fleet car — from Rye House's car park, perhaps — not when the light appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
The day the light goes on, anywhere in Hertfordshire, use this routine.
- Pull in on level, motor off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of Whittingstall Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, yes, but it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two share a flap, make sure it's closed before the bottle comes up.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at the second or third step that the bottle went in the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Do not go on to stage five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Rye Park?
The short order of things, starting with no starting your engine. The fuel pump runs on many diesels the moment the ignition goes on — and so leave it off. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
The attendants at BP, Sainsbury's or another forecourt will usually lend a hand pushing the car away when you ask. On your own drive around Rye Park? So the car stays where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the engine has already run. On the M25, under 10 miles from Rye Park, that means the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Rye Park is smaller work than a trip of under 15 miles towards St Albans, so tell us.
When our technicians get there around Rye Park, what happens?
Anywhere the vehicle has stopped, whether outside Forres Primary Academy, near St Cuthbert's Rye Park or on your own drive, the van travels to it. What fluid went in, the amount, and if it ran: we ask because those replies decide both work and price. You hear that price on the phone, before anyone heads out.
Then that tank is cleared and the fuel system purged thoroughly. Much more than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: the crystals form, some metals are attacked, and nothing washes away on its own, no matter how long it sits. The filter cleaned or, if it must be, replaced; fresh diesel in; and then a check of the vehicle. Next our technicians start it and make sure it runs smoothly before we go.
Using pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your engine has not run take roughly half an hour after our engineers are there. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Rye Park
Rye Park is a suburban area in Hertfordshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 37 metres, with terraced housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Rye Park lies approximately 18.8 miles from London and 14.5 miles from the nearest city, St Albans. Rye Park is close to nearby places such as Glen Faba, Hoddesdon, and Hailey, and has a population of around 6376 residents. Rye Park forms part of the wider urban area along the river, with a mix of residential and local amenities.
Rye Park and Hertfordshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Rye Park is a residential suburb, and the teams that cover it also work the places around it, Hoddesdon and Hailey among them, across the EN postcode area. Fastest of all: quote a EN11 0 postcode to the van.
The vehicle doesn't need to move. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Elim Church, a lay-by on the way to Old Highway Park, a driveway. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Hoddesdon Methodist Church.
Rye Park people: the short version
Tip no AdBlue till you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around Hertfordshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — and so leave it off then phone 0333 366 0103.