Harden: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave your motor and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Caught before your motor runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Harden. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the page explains the why it occurs and the how to avoid it altogether.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Not one liquid but two: that is what many modern diesels near Harden and Rushall run, with diesel feeding the motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Each tank comes with a filler of its own. Many of cars share a single flap for both, whereas some move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. Seldom topped up, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, tipped by a driver who must stop and think what cap to use. The mistake lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur around Harden?
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
On a driveway off Oakwood Road before work, or in the car park at The Railway heading home: that's where the rushed top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car tells you, and if it's empty, limp mode follows.
New-to-you vehicles come next, as well. Rentals, new vehicles and company cars put their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
No part stops the tip once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it happens in Coal Pool or the middle of Harden, it's the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Look at these first, on a forecourt around Harden or a drive over in Heath End. A few seconds, that's all.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler is if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Bloxwich? Check with whoever drove the vehicle last before leaving, not once the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
Anywhere around West Midlands the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Stop somewhere level, motor off, with time in hand — never hurried on the side of Harden Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, but it works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Shut the cap, then check once more — making sure the diesel filler remained closed throughout. After that, start the vehicle.
Discover during the second or third step that the bottle went in the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Stage five stays off limits.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Harden already?
Brief list, then. Top of it: your motor remains unstarted. Do not switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. 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.
Ask the attendants to help roll your car clear of the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the Asda, the Sainsbury's or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway in Harden.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next exit is the place to come off when you're on the M6, under 3 miles from Harden. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Harden is less a job than a run of under 10 miles towards Wolverhampton, so tell us.
When we turn up around Harden, what takes place?
Our van reaches the vehicle anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside Saint Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Church, or by Goldsmith Primary Academy. What liquid got in, the quantity, and whether it ran: we ask since those answers set both work and quote. No one sets off until you have had the price by phone.
The fuel system is then purged thoroughly, once that tank is drained. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Before leaving, we fire it up and confirm that it is running correctly.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor has not run take about half an hour once our engineers are there. The insurer will ask for an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once the job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Harden
Harden is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated on the riverside with an elevation of 161 metres. Harden lies approximately 6.4 miles from Wolverhampton and 109.5 miles from London, forming part of the larger urban landscape. Harden is characterised by its semi-detached housing and proximity to nearby places such as Coal Pool and Blakenall Heath. Harden has a population of around 8492 residents.
AdBlue drains about Harden, and West Midlands beyond
As a residential suburb, Harden shares its vans nearby areas — Goscote, Blakenall Heath — all the way across WS postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Give a postcode that starts WS3 1, and the van gets there fastest.
There's no need to move your car. The drain happens on the spot, be it a drive, a road by St Aiden's Church Centre, or a layby towards Black Country Millennium Forest. Awkward to pin down, like the back of Goscote Centre? By a border? Checking is better than assuming, and so phone.
In short, for Harden motorists
Pour nothing until you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it sits, anywhere around West Midlands.