How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Gib Heath
Leave the motor and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out right where the car sits in Gib Heath, is normally what it needs if found before the engine runs. Reading before the event? In that case the rest explains how it happens and how to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Diesel feeds the engine — but plenty of current diesels driven around Gib Heath and Merry Hill carry another liquid too. The exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the fumes to clean it, from a separate tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Many of motors have a single flap for both, while others move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. Seldom topped up, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think which cap to use. The slip lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs in Gib Heath
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Soho Pool Way before work, or in the car park at The Railway on the way home.
Then, the hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — because a hire car, a new car or a company car places the fillers where your last one did not.
A spouted bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after begun, keeps on. It's a few seconds, be it out in All Saints or right in the centre of Gib Heath.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Look at these before pouring, at a forecourt in Gib Heath or a driveway over in Lozells. A few seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually isn't. Read it rather than going by position.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of motors show what belongs in each filler right there.
- Cannot see it beside the diesel filler? In that case check beneath the bonnet or inside your boot — the owner's manual will say which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Jewellery Quarter, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Wherever across West Midlands the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Norton Street.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Discover during the second or third stage that the bottle went in the diesel tank? That's where you stop. Leave out stage five entirely.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Gib Heath?
Don't start your engine: that's how the short order of things starts. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it is the JET or the Texaco, ask the attendants to help roll the vehicle away from the petrol pump. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive in Gib Heath.
Already started? Stop when it's safe, then turn off. Come off the Aston Expressway — under 3 miles out of Gib Heath — at the next junction. Distance counts — a quick hop across Gib Heath is a smaller job than heading under 3 miles to Birmingham — so say roughly how far it went.
What happens when we arrive in Gib Heath
Outside Oasis Academy Benson, close to Vaishali Buddha Vihara or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. The answers determine this work and the price, and so we ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it's run. The price comes over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Then your tank is drained and the fuel system flushed thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. A test comes last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is cleaned or replaced if necessary. We do not leave until it has been started and is running properly.
Unrun vehicles mostly mean a half-hour visit after arrival. The kit is fine on a live forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. It's worth looking at your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Gib Heath, for a moment
Gib Heath is a suburban area located on the riverside in the West Midlands, with a mix of terraced housing and local amenities. Gib Heath sits near the city of Birmingham, approximately 1.5 miles from the city centre, and is close to nearby places such as All Saints, Hockley, and Winson Green. Gib Heath has a population of around 9446 people and is situated at an elevation of 125 metres, making it a relatively low-lying area. Gib Heath is also within commuting distance to London, being around 102.6 miles away.
AdBlue drains in Gib Heath and across West Midlands
Throughout B postcodes, the teams covering Gib Heath — a residential suburb — work the surrounding locations too, Winson Green and Hockley included. Quickest of all: quote a B18 5 postcode for the van.
Your car remains put. Anywhere it sits — beside Trinity Worship Centre, on a lay-by heading to Musgrave Road Recreation Ground, at home — that's where it gets drained. Guessing doesn't help at the back of Lodge Road Church Centre, close to a boundary, or somewhere awkward to describe; phone and check.
In short, for Gib Heath drivers
Tip nothing till you've read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it wherever it is, anywhere in West Midlands: switch the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.