AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Drakelow: How It Occurs and How to Stop It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and your ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out just where your vehicle sits around Drakelow, is normally what it needs if caught before your motor runs. Reading before the event? Then the rest explains why it happens and how to stop it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels in Witnells End, as well as Drakelow, run on two liquids; the motor gets only your diesel. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, and there a spray treats the gas.
Different tanks, separate fillers. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at every filling station visit, week in, week out. Seldom filled, AdBlue usually goes in from a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think what filler it needs. The slip lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Drakelow: how it happens
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Drakelow Lane before work, or in the car park at the pub in the village on the way home.
The old car's cap is where your hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That is the second factor: a strange car.
A spout-topped bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, once started, keeps on. It takes seconds, be it out in Blakeshall or right in the centre of Drakelow.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Cookley or a forecourt in Drakelow, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- On plenty of motors, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — many vehicles mark what belongs in each filler just there.
- Cannot see it next to your diesel filler? Then check below the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook will say where.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask as you pick up a hire car or fleet car — at Kidderminster's car park, perhaps — rather than when the light appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
When the light goes on, anywhere in Worcestershire, use this routine.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Kingsford Lane.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Never go on to step five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Drakelow?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your engine. Keep the ignition off too, because on plenty of diesels switching it on alone starts the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it is the Esso or the Sainsbury's, ask the attendants to help push the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. Your own drive in Drakelow is where it should stay.
Where the engine has run by now, pull over safely and switch it off. On the M5, under 10 miles from Drakelow, that means the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Drakelow is smaller a job than a run of under 15 miles towards Wolverhampton, so say.
Our arrival in Drakelow, and what occurs next
Anywhere your car has stopped, whether outside Wolverley Sebright Primary Academy, near Wolverley Memorial Hall or at home, our van travels to it. What fluid was put in, the amount, and if it ran: we ask because the replies decide both work and quote. On the call itself, you are told our quote — ahead of anything else.
Your system is then flushed thoroughly, once your tank is cleared. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and neither clears out by itself. Hence it matters more. Once the fuel filter is flushed — or renewed, where needed — fresh diesel is added, and then your car is tested. We do not go until it has been started and is running correctly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after our engineers arrive, as long as your motor hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Drakelow, for a moment
Drakelow is a small hamlet in Worcestershire, situated in the West Midlands region of England, with a population of around 508 people. Drakelow lies approximately 12.7 miles from Wolverhampton and 111 miles from London, in a low-lying area at an elevation of 55 metres. Drakelow is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock and rural setting, near to other small settlements like Blakeshall and Wolverley. Drakelow remains a quiet, residential community with a strong sense of local identity.
AdBlue drains across Worcestershire, Drakelow included
As a rural hamlet, Drakelow has the same vans as nearby areas — Wolverley, Kingsford — right through DY postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Quickest of all: give a DY11 5 postcode to the van.
There's no need to move the vehicle. We drain it where it is — a side street near The Giant, a lay-by on the way to Bodenham Arboretum, a drive. Tricky to explain, like the back of St John The Baptist Church? By a border? Asking is better than assuming, so phone.
In short, for Drakelow motorists
Always, the cap; then, the pour. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Keep the car off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Worcestershire.