Fradley South: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Stop here a minute when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then phone 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, carried out right where the vehicle sits around Fradley South, is usually all it needs if caught before the motor runs. Reading before the event? Then the rest explains why it comes about and what to prevent it ever happening.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Diesel feeds your engine — yet plenty of modern diesels driven around Fradley South and Curborough hold a second fluid too. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the gas to fresh it, from its own tank.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on a lot of vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up your diesel side at the pump happens constantly. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place in Fradley South
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a drive off Common Lane before work, or in the car park outside the pub in the village heading home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car tells you, and if it's empty, limp mode follows.
Next, the hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old vehicle — since a rental car, a new car or a company car places the fillers where your last one did not.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip after it has started. It takes a few seconds, whether in Hilliards Cross or right in the heart of Fradley South.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Be it a Fradley South forecourt or a driveway out in Streethay, spend a couple of seconds over these before any is poured in.
- Read the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually are not.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Lichfield Trent Valley.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Staffordshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Tye Road, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off first.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, make sure it's closed before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, shut the cap and look again that the diesel cap never came off.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Leave out stage five entirely.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Fradley South already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your engine. Keep your ignition off too, since on plenty of diesels switching it on alone starts your pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
Ask the staff to help roll your car clear of the petrol pump if you're on a forecourt — the Shell, the Esso or anywhere else. If you're on your own drive in Fradley South, leave it where it is.
Already run? Stop once it's safe, then switch off. Fradley South lies under 10 miles from the M6 Toll; there, take the next exit. A short hop across Fradley South is a smaller job than a run towards Lichfield, under 3 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our technicians arrive in Fradley South, what takes place?
Anywhere the vehicle has stopped, be it outside Fradley Park Primary and Nursery School, near Hillard's Cross Interchange or at home, our van travels to it. Our engineers ask what was put in, about how much, and if it's run, since the answers determine the work and our price. No one heads out until you've had our price over the phone.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. After that our technicians start it and check it runs smoothly before we leave.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor hasn't run need roughly half an hour after we arrive. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Fradley South, for a moment
Fradley South is a locality situated on the riverside in Staffordshire, with a mix of terraced housing and a population of around 1206 residents. Fradley South lies near the city of Lichfield, approximately 2.9 miles away, and is close to other nearby places such as Hilliards Cross and Fradley. Fradley South is located at an elevation of 68 metres, within the West Midlands region. Fradley South is also relatively distant from London, at a distance of around 108.7 miles.
AdBlue drains about Fradley South, and Staffordshire beyond
As a neighbourhood, Fradley South has the same vans as surrounding places — Fradley, Brookhay — all the way across WS postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Fastest of all: quote a WS13 8 postcode for the van.
No need to shift your car. Draining happens on the spot, whether a drive, a street by Fradley Village Hall, or a lay-by on the way to Brookhay Wood. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of St Stephen's.
In short, for Fradley South motorists
Before you tip, read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Leave it switched off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, throughout Staffordshire.