AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Dibdale: Why It Happens and How to Prevent It
Leave the engine and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain plus a full flush, carried out right where your vehicle sits in Dibdale, is usually what it needs when found before the motor runs. Reading in advance? In that case the rest covers why it happens and how to stop it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Many newer diesels around Upper Gornal, like those in Dibdale, carry on two fluids; your engine gets just the diesel. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the fumes to clean them, from a separate tank.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Other cars keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty more place both together under one flap. At the pump, your diesel side gets filled constantly. Seldom filled, AdBlue normally goes in out of a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think which filler to use. The error lives in that gap.
Dibdale: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the car, and letting it run out leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Charlecote Drive, or outside The Meadow Lark on the way home that evening.
The old car's filler is where the hand reaches — but a rental car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's a second factor: an unfamiliar motor.
Third, the bottle goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in just as easily, and after the tip begins, no part stops it. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Dibdale or out in London Fields.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these first, on a forecourt around Dibdale or a drive over in Eve Hill. A few seconds, no more.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- On many motors, size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler is if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Tipton? Ask whoever drove it last before you set off, rather than when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in West Midlands that is.
- Switch off once parked — flat ground, engine off, and never rushed beside Milking Bank on the verge.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you have located the filler and read it.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two share a flap, make sure it's closed before the bottle comes up.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then look again — making sure your diesel cap remained closed the whole time. After that, start the vehicle.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Do not go on to step five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Dibdale?
The short order of things, beginning with not starting your engine. Keep your ignition off too, because on many diesels it by itself starts your pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
On a forecourt — Esso, BP or any other — the attendants will usually help push the vehicle away, if you ask. At home around Dibdale? So the vehicle remains put.
When your motor has run by now, pull over safely then switch it off. The next exit is the place to leave when you are on the M5, under 5 miles from Dibdale. About how far did it go? Hopping across Dibdale is less a job than a trip of under 5 miles towards Wolverhampton, and so say.
Dibdale: what takes place when we arrive
By Milking Bank Primary School, close to St James the Great or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Our engineers ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, since the replies settle the work and the price. No one sets off before you've heard the price by phone.
The system is then cleaned thoroughly, after your tank is cleared. More than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: the crystals build up, some metals corrode, and none of it washes out unaided, however long it sits. A test comes last: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is flushed or changed as needed. Your engine is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs smoothly, all before we head off.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once our engineers get there, provided your motor hasn't run — and the pumps we use are safe on a live forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It is worth looking at your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Dibdale and where it is
Dibdale is a suburban area located in the West Midlands region of England, situated approximately 4.7 miles from Wolverhampton. Dibdale sits at an elevation of 179 metres, amidst the rolling hills of the inland West Midlands landscape. Dibdale is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, with nearby places including London Fields and Lower Gornal.
AdBlue drains in Dibdale and across West Midlands
Dibdale is a residential suburb, and our teams that cover it also work the towns around it, Lower Gornal and Wrens Nest among them, across the DY postcode area. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting DY1 2.
The car remains put. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Me&U Autistic Youth Club, a lay-by on the way to Black Country Millennium Forest, a drive. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of St Peter, ring and ask instead of guessing.
Dibdale drivers: the short version
First, the cap; then, the pour. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it where it stands, anywhere across West Midlands: keep the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103.