Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Ware: Why It Happens
Stop reading for a moment when the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Ware. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Not one liquid but two: that is how many newer diesels near Ware and Thundridge carry, with diesel for the motor. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, where a spray cleans the gas.
There is a filler on each tank. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place around Ware
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the vehicle, and running out leads to limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Baldock Street, or at The Old Bulls Head on the way home after work.
The old car's cap is where your hand goes — but a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That is a second thing: a strange vehicle.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip once it has started. Presdales or the heart of Ware: it is the same few seconds in both.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Be it a Ware forecourt or a drive out in Cold Christmas, spend a few seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it instead of going by position.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside the fuel flap: plenty of vehicles carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler sits if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver knows. Check when you collect a hire car or company car — at the nearest station's car park, say — rather than when the light appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
The day the light goes on, wherever around Hertfordshire, use this routine.
- Not in a rush on the side of Charvilles Roundabout, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park then switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop right there. Do not go on to stage five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Ware?
Do not start the engine: that is how the short order of things starts. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel won't weaken it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of that tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it is the Esso or the BP, ask the staff to help push the vehicle away from the petrol pump. If you're on your own drive around Ware, leave the vehicle where it stands.
Already started? Stop once it's sensible, then turn off. The next exit is where to come off when you are on the A1(M), under 10 miles from Ware. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards St Albans, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Ware.
Our arrival in Ware, and what takes place next
The van comes to your car anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside Saint Mary the Virgin, or outside Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School. Both the work and our price rest on three answers — which liquid, which quantity, and whether it's run — so our engineers ask. You hear that price by phone, before anybody sets off.
Draining the tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of your system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and none of it washes out by itself. Hence it counts more. Once your filter has been cleaned — or renewed, if needed — clean diesel goes in, and finally your vehicle is tested. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
If the motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Ware and where it is
Ware is a town situated on the River Lea in Hertfordshire, with a mix of semi-detached housing and other residential properties. Ware sits at an elevation of around 38 metres, close to the nearby settlements of Presdales, Pine Hurst, and Rush Green. Ware is located approximately 21.5 miles from London and 13.7 miles from St Albans, making it a commuter town with a population of around 19631 residents.
AdBlue drains around Ware, and Hertfordshire beyond
Ware is a riverside town, and our teams that cover it also work the towns around it, Pine Hurst and Rush Green among them, across the SG postcode area. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting SG12 9.
The vehicle remains where it is. Draining takes place right there, be it a driveway, a street by Ware War Memorial, or a layby on the way to Wooden Park. Tricky to explain, like the back of Riverside Hall? By a county line? Checking beats assuming, and so phone.
The short version for Ware drivers
Before you pour, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it waits, anywhere around Hertfordshire.