AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Falcon Lodge: Why It Happens and How to Stop It
Leave your motor and ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Normally, when the motor hasn't turned, it's drained and fully purged where the vehicle is in Falcon Lodge. The rest of this page covers why it happens and how to make sure it does not — useful if you are reading ahead of time.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Many newer diesels on the roads around Falcon Lodge and Sutton Coldfield carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank has a filler of its own. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in at each forecourt call-out, week in, week out. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Falcon Lodge: how it occurs
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a driveway off Leigh Road before work, or in the car park outside The Anvil on the way home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car tells you, and once it is gone, limp mode follows.
Then the car is strange. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part stops the tip after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Falcon Lodge or out in Reddicap Heath.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Allen End or a forecourt around Falcon Lodge.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually don't.
- On plenty of cars, the size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- A label inside your fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on many cars. Check for it.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Sutton Coldfield, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around West Midlands that is.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, engine off, and not in a rush by Falcon Lodge Crescent at the roadside.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you have found the filler and read the cap.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Stop once your tank fills or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip slowly through its built-in spout.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Spot at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? So stop just there. Don't go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Falcon Lodge already?
Do not start the engine: that is how the short order of things starts. Do not switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the attendants to help roll the car away from the petrol pump if you are at a forecourt — the JET, the Esso or somewhere else. If you're on your own drive in Falcon Lodge, leave the vehicle where it stands.
Where your motor has been run already, stop somewhere safe and turn it off. Come off the M6 Toll — under a mile out of Falcon Lodge — at the first junction. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Falcon Lodge is smaller a job than a run of under 10 miles to Birmingham, so tell us.
Falcon Lodge: what takes place when our technicians turn up
Outside New Hall Primary School, close to Falcon Lodge Methodist Church or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our technicians come to it. Both the work and the price depend on three replies — what liquid, what amount, and whether it's run — so we ask. You get that price on the phone, before anybody sets off.
Then your tank is cleared and the system rinsed thoroughly. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of it clears away by itself. Hence it matters more. Once your filter is flushed — or replaced, if required — clean diesel is added, and then the vehicle is tested. Then we fire it up and confirm it runs properly before we leave.
If the motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once this job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. It's worth checking your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Falcon Lodge itself
Falcon Lodge is a locality situated on the riverside in the West Midlands, with an elevation of around 126 metres. Falcon Lodge lies approximately 7.7 miles northwest of Birmingham and 101.6 miles northwest of London, near the neighbouring areas of Reddicap Heath and Whitehouse Common. Falcon Lodge is characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, reflecting the typical residential development of the region. Falcon Lodge forms part of the larger West Midlands conurbation, with its residents enjoying proximity to the regional centre of Birmingham.
AdBlue drains in Falcon Lodge and across West Midlands
Being a small village, Falcon Lodge has the same vans as surrounding areas — Whitehouse Common, Littleworth End — right through B postcodes and the surrounding area around them. A postcode starting B75 7 gets the van to you fastest.
The car stays put. Draining happens right there, be it a driveway, a street by Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witneses, or a lay-by towards Sutton Town Boys Football Club. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Falcon Lodge Chapel.
For Falcon Lodge drivers, the short version
Always, the cap; then, the tip. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere around West Midlands, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — so leave the car off then call 0333 366 0103.