AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Blackwell: Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. In Blackwell, finding it before the engine turns normally leaves a drain and a thorough flush on the spot. The remainder of this page explains why it happens and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you're reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
No single fluid but two: that is what many newer diesels around Blackwell and Vigo carry, with diesel feeding your motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. 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. Diesel gets filled at every forecourt visit, week in, week out. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. It's in that gap that the mistake happens.
Blackwell: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
On a driveway off St Catherine's Road before work, or in the car park at the pub in the village on the way home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle warns you, and if it is empty, limp mode kicks in.
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 your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part stops the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Linthurst or the middle of Blackwell: it takes the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these first, on a forecourt around Blackwell or a driveway out in Lickey End. A few seconds, no more.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver knows. Check as you pick up a hire car or company car — from Barnt Green's car park, say — rather than when the light appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Worcestershire that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Station Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, yes, yet it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then check once more — making sure the diesel filler remained closed the whole time. Only then, start your car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Don't carry on to step five.
Blackwell: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Do not start the engine: that is where the short order of things begins. Don't switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the staff to help push the vehicle clear of the petrol pump if you're at a forecourt — the Esso, the Harvest Energy or somewhere else. Your own drive in Blackwell is where it should stay.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your motor has already run. On the M42, under a mile from Blackwell, that means the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Blackwell is smaller work than a run of under 15 miles to Birmingham, and so say.
What happens when we arrive in Blackwell
We come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Blackwell First School, close to St Catherine's Church or on your own drive. What liquid was put in, the quantity, and if it ran: our engineers ask because the replies decide the work and price. That price is given on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Draining your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. Much more than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: the crystals build up, certain metals are attacked, and nothing washes out on its own, no matter how long it sits. Filter flushed or, if needed, swapped; clean diesel in; then a test of the vehicle. Before leaving, our engineers start the engine and make sure that it's running properly.
Unrun vehicles usually need a half-hour visit from arrival. The kit is fine on a live filling station, and hushed enough for a driveway late at night. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours once the job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. It is worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Blackwell, for a moment
Blackwell is a rural village in Worcestershire, situated inland at an elevation of 174 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type. Blackwell lies approximately 10 miles west of Birmingham and 99 miles northwest of London, near the villages of Linthurst and Burcot. Blackwell is surrounded by rolling countryside, including the wooded area of Apes Dale. Blackwell has a population of around 932 residents, making it a small but distinct community.
AdBlue drains around Blackwell and across Worcestershire
Apes Dale and Burcot are among the places around Blackwell, a rural village, that the same teams cover, over B postcodes. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting B60 1.
The car doesn't need to shift. The drain happens right there, be it a driveway, a street by Tree Trek, or a layby on the way to Blackwell Golf Club. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Junior Tree Trek, ring and ask instead of assuming.
For Blackwell motorists, the short version
Tip nothing until you have read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Leave it off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, throughout Worcestershire.