Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Cannock Wood: Why It Happens
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. In Cannock Wood, finding it before your engine turns normally leaves a drain and a full flush on the spot. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
No single liquid but two: that is what plenty of newer diesels around Cannock Wood and Cold Well carry, with diesel for the engine. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to fresh them, from its own tank.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Plenty of vehicles have a single flap for both, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is topped up at the petrol pump all the time. Much less regularly, the AdBlue side is filled — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
Cannock Wood: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Haste follows from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off Gilwell Road, or heading home in the car park outside The Park Gate Inn.
Unfamiliar motors come second, as well. Rentals, new motors and company cars put their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
A spouted bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, once started, keeps on. Whether it happens in Chestall or the middle of Cannock Wood, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A couple of seconds is all these take — so check them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Prospect Village or a forecourt in Cannock Wood.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- The size. On plenty of motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Look inside the fuel flap: many motors have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Cannot see it next to the diesel inlet? Then look beneath the bonnet or inside the boot — the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Hednesford? Ask whoever drove the car last before leaving, not when the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
Wherever around Staffordshire the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, motor off, and never in a rush by Bradwell Lane at the roadside.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It seems daft. It does the trick.
- The two behind one flap? So make sure the lid on the diesel filler is still shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? Then stop just there. Leave out step five altogether.
Cannock Wood: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Short order, then. Top of it: the engine remains unstarted. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Diluting it with more diesel won't work, because AdBlue settles to the bottom rather than blending — and that's where the fuel is pulled from.
Ask the staff to help push the car clear of the petrol pump if you are at a forecourt — the Morrisons, the Esso or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive around Cannock Wood.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Come off the M6 Toll — under 5 miles out of Cannock Wood — at the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Cannock Wood is less work than a run of under 5 miles to Lichfield, and so tell us.
Our arrival around Cannock Wood, and what occurs next
Our van comes to the car anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside Christ Church Gentleshaw, or outside Gentleshaw Primary Academy. Our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it has run, because the replies determine this work and our price. During the call itself, you hear the quote — ahead of dispatch.
The fuel system is then rinsed thoroughly, once your tank is emptied. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and none of that clears out unaided. Hence it matters more. Filter flushed or, if it must be, swapped; fresh diesel in; then a test of your car. We don't leave until it has been started and is running smoothly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after we get there, provided the engine hasn't run — and the pumps we use are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Cannock Wood, briefly
Cannock Wood is a village in Staffordshire, situated in the West Midlands region of England, with a population of around 886 people. Cannock Wood sits at an elevation of 219 metres, approximately 4.7 miles from the city of Lichfield and 112.9 miles from London. Cannock Wood is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, surrounded by nearby places such as Chestall, Windmill Bank, and Gentleshaw.
Cannock Wood and Staffordshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Windmill Bank and Gentleshaw are among the towns around Cannock Wood, a rural village, that the same teams cover, throughout WS postcodes. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting WS15 4.
No need to shift the vehicle. Draining takes place right there, whether a drive, a street near Castle Ring, or a layby on the way to Gentleshaw Common. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of The Old Windmill, ring and ask instead of assuming.
For Cannock Wood drivers, the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Keep the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, across Staffordshire.