Brandwood End: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave your motor and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before your motor runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Brandwood End. Not happened yet? Below, the rest of the page explains the why it takes place and the how to prevent it altogether.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
No single liquid but two: that's what many modern diesels near Brandwood End and Billesley Common run, with diesel feeding your motor. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Many of cars have a single flap for both, while others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less often, usually from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place in Brandwood End
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the 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 Broad Lane before work, or in the car park at The Kings Arms on the way home.
Next, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old vehicle — because a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
No part halts 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. Whether it takes place in Alcester Lanes End or the middle of Brandwood End, it is the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt in Brandwood End or a driveway out in Highters Heath. A few seconds, that's all.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of vehicles carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Pineapple Road.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across West Midlands that is.
- Turn off once parked — flat ground, motor stopped, and never rushed beside Chanston Avenue at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap, then check once more — confirm your diesel filler stayed shut throughout. After that, start the vehicle.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Never carry on to step five.
Brandwood End: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Short order, then. Top of it: your engine remains off. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the staff to help push your car away from the pump if you're on a forecourt — the Texaco, the JET or anywhere else. If you are on your own driveway in Brandwood End, leave it where it is.
When your motor has been run already, pull over safely and turn it off. The next junction is the place to come off when you are on the M42, under 5 miles from Brandwood End. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Brandwood End is a smaller job than driving under 5 miles towards Birmingham — so say roughly how far it went.
Our arrival in Brandwood End, and what occurs next
Our van comes to the vehicle wherever it has come to rest — your own drive, near War Memorial, or outside Woodthorpe Junior and Infant School. Our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, because those replies determine this work and our price. No one heads out before you have heard the price over the phone.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. More than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: crystals build up, certain metals are attacked, and nothing washes out on its own, no matter how long it sits. Testing comes at the end: before that, clean diesel is added, and your filter is flushed or changed as needed. Then our technicians fire it up and make sure it runs smoothly before we leave.
If the motor 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 at night. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. It's worth looking at your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Brandwood End and where it is
Brandwood End is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated near the River Rea and close to the city of Birmingham. Brandwood End has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are the most common, and it is located at an elevation of around 156 metres. Brandwood End is part of the larger Birmingham urban area, with nearby places including Alcester Lanes End, Stirchley, and Lifford. Brandwood End is about 4.5 miles from Birmingham city centre and 98 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across West Midlands, Brandwood End included
As a residential suburb, Brandwood End shares its vans surrounding places — Stirchley, Lifford — right through B postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Fastest of all: give a B14 5 postcode to our van.
There's no need to move the vehicle. The drain takes place on the spot, whether a drive, a street near Monyhull Church, or a layby towards Jasmin Fields Nature Reserve. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Lindsworth Community Church, ring and ask instead of assuming.
For Brandwood End motorists, the short version
Tip no AdBlue until you've read the cap. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it wherever it stands, wherever around West Midlands: switch the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.