How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Deritend
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? In that case set this page down for now, leave your ignition and motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Around Deritend, catching it before your motor turns normally means draining and a full flush on the spot. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Not one fluid but two: that's how plenty of modern diesels near Deritend and Highgate run, with diesel for your engine. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Different tanks, different fillers. Many of vehicles have a single flap for both, while some put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled on each forecourt call-out, week in, week out. The AdBlue side is topped up far less frequently, usually from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the slip lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place around Deritend
It's hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a driveway off Alcester Street before work, or in the car park at The Spotted Dog on the way home: that's where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle tells you, and once it is empty, limp mode follows.
New-to-you motors are next, as well. Hire cars, new vehicles and company vehicles put their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once begun, keeps on. Digbeth or the heart of Deritend: it is the same few seconds either way.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A few seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you tip anything, on a drive in Birmingham or a forecourt around Deritend.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue ones are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally are not.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside your fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on many motors. Check for it.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by the diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Bordesley.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
When the light goes on, wherever across West Midlands, use this routine.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Green Street.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — once you have found your filler and read the cap.
- The diesel cap stays on. When both share a flap, confirm it is shut before the bottle comes up.
- Finish when your tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour slowly through the own spout.
- Before you start the vehicle, shut the cap and look again that your diesel cap never opened off.
Find during the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Don't go on to step five.
Deritend: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Brief order, then. Top of it: your motor stays unstarted. The fuel pump starts on many diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — so keep it off. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of your tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
Ask the attendants to help push the vehicle away from the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the Texaco, the BP or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive around Deritend.
Already started? Pull over when it's sensible, then switch off. On the Aston Expressway, under 3 miles from Deritend, that means the next exit. A short hop across Deritend is a smaller job than a run towards Birmingham, under a mile away, and so tell us about how far it went.
When our technicians get there around Deritend, what happens?
Our van comes to your car wherever it stopped — your own drive, near Blue Plaque Peaky Blinders, or by St Anne's Catholic Primary School. The replies settle the work and our price, so our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and whether it has run. Nobody heads out before you have heard the price over the phone.
The fuel system is then cleaned thoroughly, once your tank is cleared. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. Testing is at the end: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and your filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. The motor is started next and checked to make sure it runs properly, all before we head off.
With pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where the engine hasn't run take about half an hour after we arrive. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork your insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Deritend itself
Deritend is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated on the riverside near the city of Birmingham. Deritend has a relatively low elevation of 111 metres and is located close to nearby places such as Digbeth, Bordesley, and Spring Vale. Deritend is predominantly composed of flat housing and is home to a population of approximately 3483 residents. Deritend is also relatively close to the major city of London, being around 100 miles away.
AdBlue drains about Deritend, and West Midlands beyond
Bordesley and Spring Vale are among the towns around Deritend, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, throughout B postcodes. Fastest of all: give a B12 0 postcode to our van.
The car does not need to shift. The drain takes place on the spot, whether a driveway, a street near Saint Anne's Catholic Church, or a lay-by on the way to Highgate Park. Assuming won't help at the back of Yellow Gorilla, on a border, or anywhere awkward to describe; phone and ask.
Deritend motorists: the short version
First, the cap; then, the pour. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Keep the car off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across West Midlands.