AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Meriden: Why It Happens and How to Stop It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. Normally, if your motor hasn't turned, it's drained and fully purged where the vehicle is around Meriden. Here before the event? Then the rest covers why it comes about and how to prevent it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to the motor — yet plenty of newer diesels driven about Meriden and Eaves Green hold another fluid as well. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on a lot of motors. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. Topping up your diesel side at the petrol pump happens constantly. The AdBlue side is filled far less frequently, usually from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake grows in the gap between them.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank take place in Meriden?
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
Hurry comes from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a drive off Main Road, or on the way home in the car park outside The Bull's Head.
Then your car is strange. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing halts the tip once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. White Stitch or the heart of Meriden: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Millisons Wood or a forecourt around Meriden, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- Many cars fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Cannot find it next to your diesel inlet? Then look below the bonnet or in the boot — the handbook says where.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Hampton-In-Arden.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
When the light comes on, anywhere across West Midlands, follow this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of The Croft.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you have found your filler and read it.
- The two behind a single flap? Then make sure the lid on your diesel side stays shut before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, and check again — making sure your diesel filler remained shut the whole time. Only then, start the car.
Spot at step two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? Then stop right there. Step five is out.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Meriden?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the motor. Don't switch your 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 the tank, where your fuel is pulled from.
Ask the attendants to help push the car away from the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Esso, the Sainsbury's or anywhere else. If you are on your own drive around Meriden, leave the car where it is.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Meriden sits under 3 miles from the M6; on it, use the next exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Coventry, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Meriden.
Meriden: what happens when our technicians turn up
By Meriden Church of England Primary School, near Cyclists' War Memorial or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, our engineers come to it. We ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, since the replies settle the work and the price. On the phone call itself, you are told the quote — ahead of anything else.
After that: draining, then a full flush of the whole system. 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 the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. After the fuel filter has been flushed — or replaced, where required — fresh diesel is added, and then your car gets tested. We don't go until it has been started and is running smoothly.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour after we arrive, as long as your engine has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It is worth looking at your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Meriden and where it is
Meriden is a village in the West Midlands, situated approximately 6 miles west of Coventry, and is characterized by its semi-detached housing stock. Meriden sits inland, at an elevation of around 113 metres, and is surrounded by nearby places such as White Stitch, Lodge Green, and Four Oaks. Meriden has a population of around 1935 residents and is located about 91 miles northwest of London.
AdBlue drains in Meriden and across West Midlands
Over CV postcodes, our teams that cover Meriden — a rural village — work the surrounding places too, Four Oaks and Lodge Green included. A postcode starting CV7 7 gets our van to you fastest.
Moving the vehicle isn't needed. We drain it where it is — a side street near Meriden Library, a lay-by on the way to The Green, Meriden, a driveway. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of The Cross.
In short, for Meriden people
Read the cap before you tip. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it wherever it stands, anywhere around West Midlands: keep the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103.