Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Lime Tree Park: Why It Occurs
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. In Lime Tree Park, catching it before your motor runs usually means draining and a full flush on the spot. Here in advance? Then what follows explains how it happens and what to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads around Lime Tree Park and Allesley Green carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler for each tank. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up constantly. The AdBlue side is topped up far less frequently, usually from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
Lime Tree Park: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
On a drive off Beech Tree Avenue before work, or in the car park outside The Newlands heading home: that is where the hurried top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car tells you, and if it is empty, limp mode kicks in.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, after started, keeps on. Lower Eastern Green or the heart of Lime Tree Park: it is the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a drive in Chapel Fields or a forecourt around Lime Tree Park.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones are often blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of motors have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Canley, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
The day the light comes on, wherever across West Midlands, use this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Broad Lane.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — once you've located the filler and read the cap.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Discover during the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the diesel filler? That is where you stop. Skip stage five entirely.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Lime Tree Park?
Short list, then. First: your motor stays off. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel will not dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of your tank, right where fuel is taken from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the Sainsbury's or the Costco, ask the attendants to help roll the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. At home in Lime Tree Park? Then your car remains put.
Already run? Pull over once it's sensible, then turn off. On the M6, under 5 miles from Lime Tree Park, that means the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Lime Tree Park is less work than a run of under 3 miles to Coventry, and so tell us.
Lime Tree Park: what happens when our technicians turn up
Outside St John Vianney Catholic Primary School, near St John Vianney or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, we come to it. Both the work and the quote rest on three answers — what liquid, what amount, and if it has run — so we ask. You hear that price on the phone, before anybody sets off.
Emptying the tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the fuel system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes away unaided. Hence it matters more. A test is last: before that, fresh diesel is added, and your filter is flushed or changed if necessary. Before leaving, our engineers fire it up and check that it's running smoothly.
If the motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents your insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Lime Tree Park itself
Lime Tree Park is a suburban area located on the outskirts of Coventry, near the River Sowe, with a mix of semi-detached housing and local amenities. Lime Tree Park sits at an elevation of around 120 metres, close to the nearby places of Lower Eastern Green, Whoberley, and Tile Hill. Lime Tree Park is situated approximately 2.5 miles from Coventry city centre, making it a convenient residential location. Lime Tree Park has a population of around 8130 residents, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains about Lime Tree Park, and West Midlands beyond
Over CV postcodes, our vans that cover Lime Tree Park — a residential suburb — work the nearby spots too, Tile Hill and Whoberley included. Quickest of all: quote a CV4 9 postcode for our van.
The vehicle remains where it is. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street close to Phoenix Martial Arts, a lay-by on the way to Old Coventrians RFC, a driveway. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Lime Tree Park Methodist Church.
In short, for Lime Tree Park people
Read the cap before you pour. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it wherever it stands, anywhere in West Midlands: switch it off and call 0333 366 0103.