AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Barr Common: How It Occurs and How to Avoid It
Leave the motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain plus a full flush, done just where your car sits in Barr Common, is usually what it takes if found before your engine runs. The remainder of this page covers why it happens and how to ensure it does not — useful if you are reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Many newer diesels on the roads around Barr Common and Mill Green carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
There's a filler on every tank. Other motors put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others have both together under one flap. Diesel gets filled at every forecourt call-out, again and again. Far less commonly, the AdBlue side gets topped up — normally from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place around Barr Common
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
Hurry follows from the warning. The vehicle warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a driveway off Erdington Road, or on the way home in the car park at Red Lion.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Third, the spout fits: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in just as readily, and once the pour begins, no part stops it. Whether it happens in Bourne Vale or the middle of Barr Common, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Be it a Barr Common forecourt or a driveway out in Stubbers Green, spend a couple of seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- Read the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally aren't.
- On plenty of motors, size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on plenty of vehicles. Look for it.
- The handbook says which it is when your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver will know. Ask when you pick up a hire car or fleet car — at Blake Street's car park, say — rather than once the warning appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
Anywhere around West Midlands the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Ridgeway, 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.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Finish once that tank fills or the bottle is empty; until then, pour gently through the built-in spout.
- Before you start the car, shut the cap and check a second time that your diesel cap never came off.
Find at the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Do not go on to step five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Barr Common?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your motor. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the car on. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of the tank, just where fuel is taken from.
Ask the attendants to help push the vehicle away from the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the BP, the Esso or anywhere else. If you're on your own drive around Barr Common, leave the car where it sits.
Already run? Pull over when it's safe, then turn off. Barr Common sits under 3 miles from the M6; on it, take the next junction. A short hop across Barr Common is a smaller job than a run towards Lichfield, under 10 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
When our engineers arrive around Barr Common, what occurs?
Outside Whetstone Field Primary School, near Saint Mary of the Angels or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it's run, because the replies determine the work and our quote. You hear that price on the phone, before anybody sets off.
Draining your tank comes next, then a full flush of the fuel system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and none of it clears out by itself. That is why it counts more. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Then our engineers start it and confirm it runs properly before leaving.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour once we get there, as long as your engine has not run — and the pumps we use are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Barr Common
Barr Common is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated near the River Tame and close to the cities of Lichfield and Walsall. Barr Common has a mix of semi-detached housing and local amenities, with nearby places including Bourne Vale, Aldridge, and Hardwick. Barr Common sits at an elevation of around 153 metres, with the larger city of Birmingham to the south and the national countryside to the north.
AdBlue drains across West Midlands, Barr Common included
Barr Common is a residential suburb, and our teams that cover it also work the places near it, Aldridge and Hardwick among them, across the WS postcode area. Quote a postcode beginning WS9 0, and the van arrives quickest.
Shifting your car isn't necessary. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Beacon Common, a side street near Sundial: we drain it where it stands. Awkward to pin down, like the back of Tynings Lane Church? By a border? Asking beats assuming, and so ring.
In short, for Barr Common drivers
Always, the cap; after that, the pour. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it is, anywhere around West Midlands: switch the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.