Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Barton Green
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, done right where your car stands around Barton Green, is usually what it takes if caught before your motor runs. Here in advance? Then the rest covers how it comes about and how to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Many newer diesels on the roads round Barton Green and Barton Turn carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler for every tank. Other vehicles put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more have both together behind one flap. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less commonly. The mistake grows in that gap between the two.
Barton Green: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
It's hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the vehicle, and running dry means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Radhurst Rise, perhaps at Middle Bell on the way home that evening.
Then the vehicle is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in just as readily, and once the pour starts, no part stops it. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Barton Green or out in Barton-under-Needwood.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Dunstall or a forecourt around Barton Green, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Position misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually don't.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — plenty of vehicles show what belongs in each filler right there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler is if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver knows. Check as you collect a hire car or fleet car — at Burton-On-Trent's car park, say — rather than when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Staffordshire that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Collinson Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Never go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Barton Green already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your motor. Keep the ignition off too, because on many diesels switching it on by itself runs the pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
At a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, Gulf or another — the attendants will normally help roll the vehicle away, if you ask. Your own driveway in Barton Green is where it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. The next exit means where to leave when you are on the M42, under 10 miles from Barton Green. Distance matters — a quick hop across Barton Green is a smaller job than driving under 10 miles towards Lichfield — so say roughly how far it went.
What takes place when our engineers get there around Barton Green
By Thomas Russell Infants School, near Our Lady of Perpetual Succour or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, we come to it. Both the work and our price depend on three replies — which liquid, which quantity, and whether it's run — so we ask. On the phone call itself, you hear the quote — ahead of dispatch.
Emptying your tank comes next, then a full flush of the system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. Filter flushed or, where needed, swapped; fresh diesel in; and then a check of your car. Next we fire it up and make sure it runs correctly before we leave.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour once our technicians arrive, provided the motor has not run — and the pumps we use are safe on a live forecourt yet 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. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Barton Green itself
Barton Green is a locality situated on the riverside in Staffordshire, with an elevation of 62 metres above sea level. Barton Green lies approximately 7 miles from the city of Lichfield and is part of the wider West Midlands region. Barton Green has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are the most predominant. Barton Green is also close to nearby places such as Barton-under-Needwood and Efflinch.
AdBlue drains across Staffordshire, Barton Green included
Barton Green is a small village, and the teams that cover it also work the towns around it, Barton Gate and Efflinch among them, across the DE postcode area. Quickest of all: quote a DE13 8 postcode for the van.
Moving your car isn't needed. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Barton under Needwood Village Hall, a lay-by on the way to Collinson Park Recreation Ground, a drive. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of St James, ring and ask rather than assuming.
The short version for Barton Green people
Always, the cap; after that, the tip. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Keep the car off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, throughout Staffordshire.