Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Churchfield
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then set this page down for now, leave your ignition and motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Churchfield. Here before the event? Then what follows covers how it happens and what to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to the engine — yet many modern diesels driven around Churchfield and Mayers Green hold a second fluid too. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas and cleans it.
Every tank comes with a filler of its own. Other vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place the two together under one flap. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs in Churchfield
It's rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Haste follows from the warning. The vehicle tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off Parsonage Street, or on the way home in the car park outside The Red Lion.
Then the car is strange. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part halts the tip once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Hall End or the middle of Churchfield: it is the same few seconds either way.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these before pouring, at a forecourt around Churchfield or a driveway over in Hateley Heath. A few seconds, no more.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue ones are often blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Tame Bridge Parkway? Ask whoever drove the car last before you set off, rather than once the light comes on.
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.
- Not in a rush on the side of Arbor Court, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park then switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- The two under one flap? Then confirm the cap on the diesel side is still closed before lifting the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting your car, shut the cap and look again that the diesel cap was never came off.
Find at the second or third step that the bottle went in the diesel tank? That is where you stop. Skip step five entirely.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Churchfield already?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting your engine. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the car on. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the bottom of that tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Seagar Street Service Station, Tesco or any other — the attendants will usually help push your car away, when you ask. At home in Churchfield? So the vehicle remains put.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the motor has already run. The next exit is where to come off when you're on the M5, under a mile from Churchfield. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Birmingham, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Churchfield.
Churchfield: what occurs when our engineers turn up
By St Mary Magdalene CofE Voluntary Controlled Primary School, close to obelisk or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Those replies decide the work and the price, and so our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and if it has run. That quote comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
Then that tank is emptied and the fuel system rinsed thoroughly. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and none of that washes out unaided. Hence it counts more. A test comes last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and your filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. Before we leave, our engineers fire it up and make sure that it's running smoothly.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after our technicians arrive, provided your motor has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once the job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Misfuelling cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to check yours.
About Churchfield
Churchfield is a suburban area located on the riverside in the West Midlands, with a mix of semi-detached housing and local amenities. Churchfield sits approximately 5 miles west of Birmingham city centre, near the neighbourhoods of Hall End and Charlemont. Churchfield has a population of around 6890 residents and is situated at an elevation of 155 metres, overlooking the surrounding landscape. Churchfield is also within commuting distance to London, being around 106 miles northwest of the capital.
AdBlue drains across West Midlands, Churchfield included
Lyndon and Charlemont are among the towns near Churchfield, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, throughout B postcodes. A postcode starting B71 4 gets our van to you fastest.
There's no need to move your car. Wherever it sits — beside Tree of Hope & Dedication, on a layby en route to Sot's Hole Local Nature Reserve, at home — that is where it gets emptied. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Sandwell Clincal Library.
For Churchfield drivers, the short version
Tip no AdBlue until you have read the cap. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, wherever in West Midlands: switch the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.