Willian: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Stop reading for a moment if the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. In Willian, catching it before your motor turns normally leaves a drain and a full flush on the spot. Here in advance? In that case what follows covers why it happens and what to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Diesel feeds your engine — yet many newer diesels seen around Willian and Walsworth hold a second liquid as well. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to fresh it, from its own tank.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Filling the diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. Much less commonly, the AdBlue side gets topped up — normally from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen around Willian?
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
Hurry follows from the warning. The vehicle warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a driveway off Baldock Lane, or on the way home in the car park outside The Three Horseshoes.
Then, your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old motor — because a rental car, a new car or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
No part halts the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Willian or out in Letchworth.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt in Willian or a driveway out in Graveley. Seconds, no more.
- Read the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Open the flap and check for a label — many cars show which goes in each inlet just there.
- The handbook says where it is if your filler isn't next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check as you collect a rental or fleet car — at Letchworth Garden City's car park, say — rather than when the warning comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Hertfordshire that is.
- Pull in on level, motor off, with time in hand — never rushing on the side of Wymondley Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- Both under a single flap? Then confirm the lid on the diesel filler is still shut before raising the bottle.
- Stop once the tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; until then, tip gently using its built-in spout.
- Close the cap, then look again — making sure the diesel cap remained shut throughout. Only then, start the car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Stage five stays off limits.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Willian?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting your engine. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the car on. Thinning it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of blending — and that is where your fuel is drawn from.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it's the Esso or the BP, ask the staff to help push the vehicle clear of the pump. At home around Willian? So the car stays where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. Leave the A1(M) — under a mile out of Willian — at the first junction. About how far did it go? Hopping across Willian is smaller work than a run of under 25 miles to St Albans, and so say.
When we get there around Willian, what takes place?
By Lordship Farm Primary School, near All Saints' Church or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, we come to it. Those answers determine this work and our price, so our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run. That quote comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Then your tank is drained and the system flushed thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. A test comes at the end: before that, fresh diesel is added, and the fuel filter is cleaned or changed as needed. Next we start it and make sure it runs properly before we leave.
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. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Willian and where it is
Willian is a suburban area in Hertfordshire, situated approximately 31.6 miles north of London and 15.4 miles from the city of St Albans. Willian sits at an elevation of around 84 metres, in a landscape of gentle hills and valleys. Willian is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, and is located near other settlements such as Letchworth and Great Wymondley.
AdBlue drains in Willian and across Hertfordshire
Over SG postcodes, the teams that cover Willian — a residential suburb — work the surrounding locations too, Great Wymondley and Purwell among them. A postcode starting SG6 2 gets our van to you fastest.
The vehicle doesn't need to move. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Willian Arboretum, a side street close to Telford Morton: we drain it where it stands. Assuming won't help behind Saint Mary the Virgin, on a border, or somewhere awkward to describe; ring and ask.
In short, for Willian people
Before you tip, read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Keep the car off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, throughout Hertfordshire.