Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Townsend
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Townsend. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Diesel goes to the engine — but many modern diesels driven around Townsend and St Stephens hold a second liquid as well. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, side by side: that's the layout on many cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in your boot instead. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think which filler it needs. That gap is where the slip lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Townsend: how it takes place
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Hurry comes from the warning. The vehicle warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a driveway off Batchwood View, or on the way home in the car park outside Craft & Cleaver.
Then, the hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old motor — because a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip once it has started. New Greens or the middle of Townsend: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a drive in Childwick Bury or a forecourt in Townsend.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- On plenty of cars, the size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of vehicles carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- Cannot find it beside your diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook says where.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside St Albans.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Hertfordshire that is.
- Switch off once parked — level ground, engine off, and not rushed beside Lavender Crescent at the roadside.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- The two behind one flap? So make sure the cap on the diesel side stays closed ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Pour 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.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Never carry on to stage five.
Townsend: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Don't start your motor: that's where the short order of things starts. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch it on. Diluting it with more diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the base rather than mixing — and that is where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — BP, Texaco or another — the attendants will usually help roll your car away, when you ask. On your own drive around Townsend? Then the vehicle remains where it is.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Townsend lies under 3 miles from the M1; there, take the next exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards St Albans, under a mile away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Townsend.
Townsend: what takes place when our engineers turn up
Outside Garden Fields Junior Mixed and Infant School, near Waverley Sports and Social Club or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Both the work and the price depend on three answers — what fluid, what quantity, and if it has run — so our technicians ask. Nobody sets off until you've had the price by phone.
The system is then rinsed thoroughly, once the tank is emptied. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and none of it washes away unaided. Hence it counts more. After the filter has been cleaned — or replaced, where required — clean diesel is added, and then your car gets tested. Before we leave, our engineers fire it up and confirm that it's running properly.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once our technicians arrive, provided your engine has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. Your insurer will ask for an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours once the job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. It is worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Townsend and where it is
Townsend is a suburban area located in Hertfordshire, situated approximately 0.7 miles from the city of St Albans. Townsend sits inland at an elevation of around 120 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Townsend is close to other nearby places such as New Greens and Bernards Heath, and is about 19.9 miles from London.
AdBlue drains around Townsend and across Hertfordshire
As a residential suburb, Townsend has the same vans as nearby areas — St Albans, Bernards Heath — right through AL postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting AL3 5.
Your car remains where it is. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near Youth Centre, a lay-by on the way to Townsend Bowls & Tennis Club, a drive. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Jubilee Centre, ring and ask rather than guessing.
For Townsend people, the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave it off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Hertfordshire.