Chad Valley: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave your motor and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain plus a full flush, done just where your car stands in Chad Valley, is usually all it takes if found before your engine runs. Here in advance? Then what follows explains how it happens and how to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Not one fluid but two: that's how many modern diesels around Chad Valley and Ladywood run, with diesel for your engine. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to clean them, from a separate tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of vehicles share a single flap for the two, while others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, the diesel side gets filled constantly. Rarely filled, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, poured by a driver who has to stop and think what filler it needs. It's in that gap that the error happens.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs in Chad Valley
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
Hurry follows from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a drive off Chad Square, or on the way home in the car park at The White Swan.
Then your car is new. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, after started, carries on. Whether it occurs in Edgbaston or the middle of Chad Valley, it is the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Harborne or a forecourt around Chad Valley.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the flap and check for a label — many motors mark what goes in each filler just there.
- Can't see it beside your diesel filler? Then check below the bonnet or inside the boot — the owner's manual says which.
- The previous driver knows. Check as you pick up a rental or company car — from Five Ways's car park, perhaps — not once the warning comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
Anywhere around West Midlands the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Switch off after you park — level ground, motor stopped, and never in a rush by Chancellors Close at the roadside.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, but it works.
- The two behind a single flap? So make sure the cap on the diesel filler stays shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to step five.
Chad Valley: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting your engine. Leave the ignition off as well, since on many diesels it by itself runs your pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it is the the nearest petrol station or the Shell, ask the staff to help roll the vehicle clear of the pump. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway in Chad Valley.
Where the motor has run already, pull over safely and switch the vehicle off. On the Aston Expressway, under 3 miles from Chad Valley, that means the next junction. Mileage counts — a short hop across Chad Valley is a smaller job than heading under 3 miles to Birmingham — so say roughly how far it went.
Our arrival around Chad Valley, and what takes place next
Our technicians come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Chad Vale Primary School, close to Hugh Nettlefold Alpine Garden or on your own drive. Which fluid got in, the amount, and whether it ran: our technicians ask since those replies decide the work and price. On the call itself, you hear the price — before anything else.
Emptying that tank comes next, then a full flush of the fuel system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and none of that washes away unaided. That is why it counts more. The filter cleaned or, if needed, replaced; clean diesel in; and then a check of your car. Next we start the car and check it runs properly before leaving.
If your engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. 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, and so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Chad Valley and where it is
Chad Valley is a locality in the West Midlands, situated near the River Rea and close to the city of Birmingham. Chad Valley has a mix of housing types, but detached homes are predominant in the area. Chad Valley is located near several other localities, including Edgbaston, Rotton Park, and Lee Bank, and is about 1.6 miles from Birmingham city centre. Chad Valley sits at an elevation of around 151 metres above sea level.
AdBlue drains around Chad Valley and across West Midlands
Chad Valley is a neighbourhood, and the vans that cover it also work the places near it, Rotton Park and Lee Bank among them, across the B postcode area. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting B15 3.
No need to shift your car. Draining takes place right there, be it a driveway, a street near Edgbaston Archery & Lawn Tennis Society, or a lay-by towards Historic Garden. Guessing doesn't help at the back of blue plaque: Neville Chamberlain, close to a border, or somewhere awkward to pin down; ring and check.
In short, for Chad Valley drivers
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in West Midlands, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — so leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103.