Fordbridge: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Leave your motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before your motor runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Fordbridge. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Many newer diesels in Kingshurst, as well as Fordbridge, carry on two fluids; the engine gets just your diesel. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank comes with a filler of its own. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the layout on a lot of vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. 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 slip lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Fordbridge: how it takes place
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
On a drive off Chelmsley Road before work, or in the car park at The Centurion heading home: that's where the hurried top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low the vehicle warns you, and once it's empty, limp mode follows.
Then, your hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old car — since a hire car, a new car or a company car places the fillers where your last one didn't.
A spouted bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, after started, carries on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Fordbridge or out in Bacons End.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Marston Green or a forecourt around Fordbridge, check these. They take a few seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- On many motors, the size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Check inside the fuel flap: plenty of vehicles carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it is if your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask when you collect a rental or company car — from Marston Green's car park, perhaps — not when the warning comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
The day the light comes on, anywhere in West Midlands, use this routine.
- Pull in somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Perch Avenue.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, but it does the trick.
- The two under a single flap? Then make sure the cap on the diesel filler stays shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Discover during the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Stage five is out.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Fordbridge?
Do not start the motor: that's how the short order of things starts. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels as soon as the ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — Esso, BP or any other — the attendants will normally help roll the car away, when you ask. Your own driveway in Fordbridge is where it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. Fordbridge lies under a mile from the M6; on it, take the first exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Birmingham, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Fordbridge.
Fordbridge: what takes place when we get there
Our technicians come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside St Anne's Catholic Primary School, close to North Solihull Sports Centre or on your own driveway. Both the work and the quote rest on three replies — what fluid, what amount, and whether it's run — so our technicians ask. On the call itself, you hear the quote — ahead of dispatch.
Your system is then rinsed thoroughly, once the tank is emptied. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes away by itself. Hence it matters more. After the filter is cleaned — or replaced, if needed — fresh diesel goes in, and then the car gets tested. We do not leave until it has been started and is running correctly.
If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It's worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Fordbridge itself
Fordbridge is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated on the riverside at an elevation of around 85 metres. Fordbridge lies approximately 6.7 miles from Birmingham and is surrounded by nearby places such as Bacons End, Chelmsley Wood, and Tile Cross. Fordbridge has a population of around 6352 people and is predominantly composed of flat-type housing.
AdBlue drains in Fordbridge and across West Midlands
As a residential suburb, Fordbridge shares its vans nearby places — Chelmsley Wood, Tile Cross — all the way across B postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Fastest of all: quote a B37 5 postcode to the van.
The car does not need to move. We drain it where it is — a side street near St Anne's, a lay-by on the way to Chelmsley Wood LNR, a drive. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Chelmsley Wood Library, ring and ask rather than guessing.
The short version for Fordbridge people
Tip no AdBlue until you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave the car off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere in West Midlands.