AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Lode Heath: How It Occurs and How to Prevent It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Lode Heath. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Not one liquid but two: that is what many modern diesels around Lode Heath and Ulverley Green carry, with diesel for your engine. The exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the gas to clean it, from a separate tank.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. 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. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. The mistake grows in the gap between the two.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens around Lode Heath
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Hermitage Road before work, or in the car park outside Red House on the way home.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing stops the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Lode Heath or out in Solihull.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Catherine-de-Barnes or a forecourt around Lode Heath, check these. They take a few seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually is not. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- Plenty of cars fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it lives if your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Solihull, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
The day the light goes on, wherever in West Midlands, follow this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Caldwell Grove.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, but it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the car on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, close the cap and look again that your diesel cap never came off.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Stage five stays off limits.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Lode Heath?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting your motor. Don't switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Thinning it with extra diesel won't work, since AdBlue sinks to the base rather than blending — and that is where the fuel is sucked from.
At a forecourt — Esso, Shell or another — the attendants will usually help roll your car away, when you ask. If you're on your own drive around Lode Heath, leave the vehicle where it sits.
When the motor has been run by now, pull over somewhere safe then switch the car off. Lode Heath lies under 3 miles from the M42; on it, use the first exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Birmingham, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Lode Heath.
Our arrival around Lode Heath, and what occurs next
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Greswold Primary School, near The Hub or on your own drive. Which liquid got in, the quantity, and if it ran: our engineers ask since the replies set the work and price. You hear that quote on the phone, before anyone heads out.
Next: draining, then a full flush of the entire system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that matters more here than with petrol. Filter flushed or, if needed, swapped; clean diesel in; then a test of your car. We don't go until it has been started and is running smoothly.
If the engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Lode Heath itself
Lode Heath is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated near the River Blythe and close to the cities of Birmingham and Solihull. Lode Heath has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are the most common, and the area is around 135 metres above sea level. Lode Heath is located near several other suburban areas, including Elmdon Heath and Olton, and is about 6.7 miles from Birmingham city centre. Lode Heath is also within commuting distance of London, which is approximately 94.4 miles away.
AdBlue drains across West Midlands, Lode Heath included
Lode Heath is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the towns near it, Elmdon Heath and Olton among them, across the B postcode area. Quote a postcode that starts B91 2, and the van arrives quickest.
There's no need to move the vehicle. Draining happens right there, be it a driveway, a street near St Mary & Archangel Michael Coptic Cathedral, or a layby towards Brueton Gardens. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Solihull Gospel Hall, ring and ask rather than guessing.
The short version for Lode Heath motorists
First, the cap; then, the pour. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it wherever it stands, anywhere across West Midlands: switch it off then phone 0333 366 0103.