How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Blounts Green
Leave the engine and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Normally, when your motor hasn't run, it's drained and thoroughly flushed where the car is in Blounts Green. The rest of this page explains why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't — useful if you're reading ahead of time.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads around Blounts Green and Highwood carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Different tanks, different fillers. Other cars keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place both together behind one flap. At the petrol pump, the diesel side gets filled constantly. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, tipped by a driver who must stop and think which filler to use. That gap is where the mistake lives.
Blounts Green: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the car, and letting it run dry means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Stafford Road, or outside The Plough Inn on the way home after work.
Then, your hand goes for the cap it knew on the old motor — since a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not.
Third, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in as easily, and once the pour starts, nothing halts it. Balance Hill or the heart of Blounts Green: it is the same few seconds either way.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in The Heath or a forecourt around Blounts Green, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by the diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Uttoxeter, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Wherever around Staffordshire the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Kingstone Road, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park then switch off first.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It seems daft. It does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. When the two share a flap, make sure it is shut before the bottle comes up.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Never go on to step five.
Blounts Green: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Brief list, then. Top of it: the motor remains off. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — so keep it off. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it's the Tesco or the Shell, ask the staff to help roll the car away from the pump. Your own driveway around Blounts Green is where it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your motor has already run. Blounts Green lies under 15 miles from the M6; there, take the next exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Lichfield, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Blounts Green.
What occurs when our technicians get there in Blounts Green
The van reaches the vehicle anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, near Uttoxeter Leisure Centre, or outside Picknalls First School. Those answers settle the work and our quote, so our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run. On the phone call itself, you hear our price — ahead of dispatch.
Next: draining, then a thorough flush of the entire system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Before leaving, our technicians fire it up and make sure that it's running correctly.
If the engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a working 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. It's worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Blounts Green, briefly
Blounts Green is a suburban area in Staffordshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 119 metres. Blounts Green lies near the city of Lichfield, approximately 14.5 miles away, and is also close to other nearby places such as Balance Hill and Mount Pleasant. Blounts Green has a population of around 721 people and predominantly features detached housing. Blounts Green is located in the West Midlands region, about 121 miles from London.
AdBlue drains in Blounts Green and across Staffordshire
As a residential suburb, Blounts Green shares its vans surrounding areas — Mount Pleasant, Uttoxeter — right through ST postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. A postcode starting ST14 8 gets the van to you fastest.
There's no need to move the vehicle. Draining takes place right there, be it a drive, a street near Dove Evangelical Free Church, or a layby on the way to Hazwelwalls Play area. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, ring and ask instead of assuming.
The short version for Blounts Green people
First, the cap; then, the tip. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Keep the car switched off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across Staffordshire.