Standon: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave your engine and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain plus a full flush, carried out right where your car sits in Standon, is normally what it takes when found before your engine runs. Reading before the event? In that case the rest explains why it comes about and how to stop it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of newer diesels in Broken Green, like those in Standon, run on two liquids; the engine gets just the diesel. The exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to fresh it, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Some motors keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place both side by side under one flap. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank happen in Standon?
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things lining up at once.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Paper Mill Lane before work, or in the car park at The Star on the way home.
The old car's cap is where the hand goes — but a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's the second thing: a strange motor.
Nothing halts the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It takes a few seconds, be it in Puckeridge or bang in the centre of Standon.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these first, on a forecourt in Standon or a drive over in Bromley. A few seconds, no more.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually isn't. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — many motors mark which goes in each inlet right there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler is if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver knows. Ask as you collect a rental or company car — at Ware's car park, perhaps — not when the light appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
On the day the light comes on — anywhere it is around Hertfordshire — a routine to follow.
- Not in a rush on the side of High Street, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park and switch off first.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two sit under a flap, make sure it is shut before the bottle comes up.
- Finish once the tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, tip slowly through the own spout.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Skip stage five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Standon?
The short order of things, beginning with not starting the engine. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels as soon as your ignition goes on — so leave it off. Thinning it with more diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the base rather than blending — and that's where your fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Amco, JET or any forecourt will usually lend a hand pushing the car clear if you ask. On your own drive in Standon? So the vehicle stays put.
Already started? Pull over once it is sensible, then turn off. Standon lies under 10 miles from the M11; on it, use the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Standon is less a job than a trip of under 25 miles to St Albans, and so say.
Standon: what takes place when our technicians turn up
By Roger De Clare First CofE School, close to Standon Village Hall or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, since the answers settle this work and our quote. Nobody heads out before you have had the quote by phone.
Draining your tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the fuel system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. After the filter has been cleaned — or replaced, where required — clean diesel goes in, and finally your vehicle is tested. Next our technicians fire it up and make sure it runs properly before we go.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour after our technicians get there, provided your engine has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents your insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — and so use the wait to check yours.
About Standon
Standon is a village in Hertfordshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of around 68 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Standon lies approximately 26.6 miles from London and 18 miles from the city of St Albans, near other small settlements such as Puckeridge and Latchford. Standon has a population of around 890 residents, who live in a quiet riverside setting. Standon is surrounded by rolling countryside and other nearby places like Wellpond Green.
Standon and Hertfordshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Being a village, Standon has the same vans as surrounding places — Latchford, Wellpond Green — right through SG postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. A postcode starting SG11 1 gets the van to you fastest.
Your car doesn't need to shift. Anywhere it stands — beside St Mary, on a lay-by heading to Pockenden Field, on a drive — that's where it gets drained. Guessing doesn't help at the back of Standon & Puckeridge Community Centre, close to a boundary, or anywhere hard to pin down; phone and ask.
For Standon people, the short version
Before you tip, 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 — so leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103.