How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Birchfield
Keep your engine and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Around Birchfield, finding it before your motor turns normally leaves a drain and a thorough flush on the spot. Here before the event? In that case the rest explains how it happens and how to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Not one fluid but two: that's what plenty of modern diesels near Birchfield and Aston New Town carry, with diesel feeding the engine. The exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the gas to fresh them, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that's the layout on many vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. Much less regularly, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place in Birchfield
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Trinity Road before work, or in the car park outside The Stork on the way home.
Then the car is strange. 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.
Nothing halts the tip after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Lozells or the middle of Birchfield: it is the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt around Birchfield or a drive out in Witton. A few seconds, no more.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually isn't. Read it instead of going by position.
- On many cars, size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of cars mark which belongs in which filler just 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 tells you which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Perry Barr? Check with the person who drove the car last before you set off, not once the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
Wherever around West Midlands the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Freer Road, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park then switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It seems daft. It works.
- Both behind one flap? Then confirm the lid on the diesel filler is still closed ahead of raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Discover at the second or third step that the bottle went in the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Don't carry on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Birchfield?
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, and so do not switch it on. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it's the Gulf or the Esso, ask the staff to help roll your car away from the pump. Your own drive around Birchfield is where it stays.
When the motor has been run already, pull over somewhere safe then turn it off. On the Aston Expressway, under a mile from Birchfield, that means the next exit. Distance matters — a quick hop across Birchfield makes a smaller job than driving under 3 miles to Birmingham — so say roughly how far it went.
Our arrival around Birchfield, and what takes place next
Anywhere the car came to rest, be it by Birchfield Primary School, near Masjid-Al-Falaah, Kokni Muslim Association or at home, the van travels to it. Both the work and our price rest on three answers — what fluid, what quantity, and if it has run — so we ask. On the call itself, you hear our price — before dispatch.
The fuel system is then rinsed thoroughly, after your tank is drained. Much more than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: crystals form, certain metals corrode, and nothing clears out unaided, however long it is left. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running properly.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor has not run take about half an hour after we are there. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours once the job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies — so use the wait to check yours.
About Birchfield and where it is
Birchfield is a suburban area located near the centre of Birmingham, with a mix of terraced housing and local amenities. Birchfield sits at an elevation of around 110 metres, close to the nearby areas of Lozells, Aston, and Newtown. Birchfield is home to a diverse population of approximately 18,505 people, living in a range of predominantly terraced homes. Birchfield is situated about 2 miles from Birmingham city centre, making it a convenient location for commuters.
Birchfield and West Midlands: AdBlue drains across the area
Aston and Newtown are among the places around Birchfield, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, throughout B postcodes. A postcode starting B6 6 gets our van to you fastest.
The car remains put. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to King Edward VI Aston Playing Fields, a side street near Birchfield Library: our technicians drain it where it sits. Tricky to explain, like the back of Holy Trinity Parish Church? Close to a border? Asking beats guessing, so phone.
For Birchfield drivers, the short version
First, the cap; then, the pour. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere across West Midlands.