Dickens Heath: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then put this page down a moment, leave your ignition and motor off, then phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Dickens Heath. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Many modern diesels on the roads around Dickens Heath and Rumbush carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, where spraying treats the fumes.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. Some cars put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more have the two side by side under one flap. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, poured by a driver who has to stop and think what filler it needs. That gap is where the mistake lives.
Dickens Heath: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
On a driveway off Rumbush Lane before work, or in the car park at Morton's Kitchen Bar & Deli heading home: that is where the hurried top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car warns you, and once it's gone, limp mode kicks in.
New-to-you cars come next, too. Rentals, new vehicles and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and the hand reaches for the cap used on the old one.
Nothing stops the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Three Maypoles or the middle of Dickens Heath: it is the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Majors Green or a forecourt around Dickens Heath, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps are often blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally do not.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it lives when your filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- 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 Whitlocks End.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
On the day the light appears — wherever you are in West Midlands — a simple routine to use.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Main Street.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It seems silly. It works.
- The two under a single flap? So confirm the lid on the diesel side stays closed before raising the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, close the cap and look again that the diesel cap never came off.
Spot at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop just there. Don't carry on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Dickens Heath?
Brief order, then. Top of that: the engine remains unstarted. Keep your ignition off as well, because on plenty of diesels it alone runs the pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it is the Murco or the Sainsbury's, ask the staff to help push the vehicle away from the petrol pump. If you are on your own drive in Dickens Heath, leave the vehicle where it stands.
Where the motor has been run by now, stop somewhere safe then turn the car off. On the M42, under 3 miles from Dickens Heath, that means the next junction. A short hop across Dickens Heath is a smaller job than a run towards Birmingham, under 10 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival in Dickens Heath, and what happens next
Our van reaches the car wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside Dickens Heath Library, or outside Dickens Heath Community Primary School. Our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and if it's run, since those replies decide the work and the quote. The price is given over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Then your tank is emptied and the system cleaned thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Testing is last: before that, clean diesel is added, and the filter is flushed or replaced as needed. The motor is fired up next and tested to be sure it runs correctly, all before we head off.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after our technicians get there, provided the motor has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a busy forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Dickens Heath and where it is
Dickens Heath is a village situated on the riverside in the West Midlands, with a mix of housing types although predominantly flat. Dickens Heath sits at an elevation of 149 metres, close to the nearby settlements of Three Maypoles, Whitlocks End, and Tidbury Green. Dickens Heath is located approximately 7 miles south of Birmingham, making it a commuter base for the city. Dickens Heath has a population of around 4342 residents.
Dickens Heath and West Midlands: AdBlue drains across the area
Dickens Heath is a village, and the teams that cover it also work the towns near it, Whitlocks End and Tidbury Green among them, across the B postcode area. Quote a postcode that starts B90 1, and our van arrives fastest.
The car doesn't need to move. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Dickens Heath Village Hall, a lay-by on the way to Dickens Heath Local Nature Reserve, a driveway. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of St John the Divine.
For Dickens Heath drivers, the short version
Pour no AdBlue until you've read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, across West Midlands.