Holy Cross: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then set this page aside a moment, leave your ignition and engine off, then phone 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, carried out right where the vehicle sits in Holy Cross, is normally what it needs when found before your motor runs. Here in advance? Then the rest explains why it happens and what to prevent it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads around Holy Cross and Belbroughton carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
There is a filler on every tank. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on many motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less commonly. The mistake grows in the gap between them.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place around Holy Cross
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
Hurry follows from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a drive off Summerfield Road, or on the way home in the car park at Clent Club.
Unfamiliar motors are second, as well. Hire cars, new motors and company motors place their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap it used on the old one.
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 pour once it has started. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Holy Cross or out in Lower Clent.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A few seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Hartle or a forecourt around Holy Cross.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually isn't. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- On many vehicles, size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Open the filler flap and look for a label — plenty of motors mark what goes in which filler just there.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check as you pick up a hire car or fleet car — at Hagley's car park, perhaps — not when the warning comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
On the day the light comes on — wherever you are around Worcestershire — a routine to follow.
- Not in a rush on the side of Belbroughton Road, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park then switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud while unscrewing it. It sounds silly. It works.
- Both under a single flap? So confirm the cap on the diesel filler is still shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the vehicle, close the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap never came off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Do not go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Holy Cross?
Short order, then. Top of that: your engine stays off. Keep your ignition off as well, because on plenty of diesels it by itself starts your fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help push the car clear of the petrol pump if you are at a forecourt — the Shell, the JET or somewhere else. If you are on your own driveway around Holy Cross, leave it where it sits.
Already started? Stop when it's sensible, then switch off. Leave the M5 — under 3 miles out of Holy Cross — at the next junction. A short hop across Holy Cross is a smaller job than a run towards Birmingham, under 15 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
Holy Cross: what occurs when our engineers get there
Our engineers come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Clent Parochial Primary School, near Clent Parish Hall or on your own driveway. Our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and whether it's run, because those replies decide the work and our price. You get that quote on the phone, before anyone heads out.
The fuel system is then flushed thoroughly, once that tank is cleared. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and none of that clears out unaided. Hence it counts more. Filter cleaned or, if it must be, swapped; fresh diesel in; then a test of the vehicle. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
With pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor hasn't run need about half an hour once our engineers are there. No money in advance; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Holy Cross itself
Holy Cross is a small village in Worcestershire, situated inland at an elevation of around 146 metres. Holy Cross lies near the villages of Lower Clent and Clent, and is close to Walton Pool. Holy Cross is characterized by its semi-detached housing and is located approximately 10 miles from Birmingham, making it a commuter base for the city.
AdBlue drains in Holy Cross and across Worcestershire
Throughout DY postcodes, the teams that cover Holy Cross — a rural village — work the surrounding locations too, Clent and Walton Pool among them. Give a postcode beginning DY9 9, and our van gets there fastest.
Shifting the vehicle isn't necessary. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Gappelter Common, a side street close to War Memorial: our technicians drain the car where it stands. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of St. Leonard's Church, ring and ask rather than assuming.
In short, for Holy Cross motorists
Before you pour, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere in Worcestershire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless — and so leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103.