How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bolehall
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, carried out right where your car stands around Bolehall, is usually all it needs if found before your motor runs. Reading in advance? In that case what follows explains how it comes about and what to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
No single liquid but two: that's what many modern diesels near Bolehall and Amington run, with diesel for your motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
There is a filler on each tank. Other vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have both side by side under one flap. Diesel goes in on each filling station call-out, again and again. Seldom topped up, AdBlue normally goes in out of a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think what filler it needs. It's in the gap that the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place around Bolehall
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the vehicle, and running dry means limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Goostry Close, or outside The Amington Inn on the way home that evening.
The old car's cap is where the hand goes — yet a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That is a second factor: an unfamiliar vehicle.
Nothing stops the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's seconds, be it in Glascote or right in the centre of Bolehall.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Perry Crofts or a forecourt in Bolehall.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Tamworth.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
The day the light goes on, wherever around Staffordshire, follow this routine.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Amblerise Close.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- Both behind a single flap? Then confirm the cap on your diesel side is still shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Finish when the tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip slowly through the own spout.
- Before starting your car, shut the cap and check a second time that the diesel cap never came off.
Find during the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Stage five is off limits.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Bolehall?
Don't start the motor: that's how the short order of things begins. Keep your ignition off too, because on plenty of diesels it by itself runs your pump. Thinning it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the base instead of blending — and that is where your fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help push the car clear of the pump if you're on a forecourt — the Texaco, the BP or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway in Bolehall.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. Come off the M42 — under 3 miles out of Bolehall — at the next junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Lichfield, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Bolehall.
When our engineers turn up around Bolehall, what occurs?
Anywhere your car has stopped, whether by Ankermoor Primary Academy, near Bolehall Swifts or at home, the van travels to it. Those answers determine this work and our quote, and so our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and if it has run. Nobody sets off before you have had our quote by phone.
Draining your tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and neither clears away unaided. Hence it counts more. Filter flushed or, where needed, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a check of the vehicle. We don't go until it has been started and is running properly.
Unrun cars mostly mean a half-hour job after the moment we arrive. The kit is safe on a live filling station, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Bolehall
Bolehall is a suburban area in Staffordshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 77 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Bolehall lies approximately 7 miles from the city of Lichfield and is close to nearby places such as Glascote, Tamworth, and Kettlebrook. Bolehall is home to around 7075 residents and forms part of the wider West Midlands region. Bolehall is located 101.9 miles northwest of London, making it a relatively accessible location.
AdBlue drains around Bolehall, and Staffordshire beyond
Throughout B postcodes, the teams covering Bolehall — a residential suburb — work the nearby places too, Kettlebrook and Tamworth included. A postcode starting B77 3 gets the van to you fastest.
Moving your car is not necessary. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Amington Inn Beer Garden, a side street near Elim Church: our technicians drain the car where it is. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Glascote Methodist Church.
For Bolehall drivers, the short version
Read the cap before you tip. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Keep the vehicle switched off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, across Staffordshire.