How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Mile Oak
Keep your engine and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain plus a thorough flush, done right where your car sits around Mile Oak, is usually what it takes if found before your engine runs. The remainder of this page covers why it takes place and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you're reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Diesel feeds your motor — yet plenty of modern diesels driven around Mile Oak and Fazeley carry another fluid too. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that's the layout on a lot of motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in your boot instead. The diesel side is fuelled at the petrol pump all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally goes in out of a bottle, poured by a driver who must stop and think which filler to use. It is in that gap that the error happens.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens in Mile Oak
Carelessness seldom explains it. What does is three things lining up at once.
Haste comes from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off Hints Road, or heading home in the car park at The Longwood.
Next, your hand goes for the cap it knew on the old car — because a hire car, a new car or a company car places the fillers where your last one did not.
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. Whether it happens in The Bodnetts or the middle of Mile Oak, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Whether a Mile Oak forecourt or a drive over in Bitterscote, spend a couple of seconds on these before any is poured in.
- Position can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue ones are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- On many cars, the size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside the fuel flap: many motors have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Tamworth? Check with the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, not when the light goes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — wherever it is around Staffordshire — a routine to use.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of Sutton Road.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you've located your filler and read the cap.
- The two behind one flap? Then confirm the lid on your diesel filler stays closed before raising the bottle.
- Finish when that tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, tip slowly through its own spout.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Discover during the second or third step that the bottle went into the wrong tank? That's where you stop. Skip stage five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Mile Oak?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your motor. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels as soon as the ignition is switched on — so leave it off. Filling up with diesel will not dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of your tank, right where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — Sainsbury's, Asda or another — the staff will usually help push your car clear, if you ask. On your own drive in Mile Oak? So the vehicle remains put.
Already run? Stop when it is safe, then switch off. On the M6 Toll, under 3 miles from Mile Oak, that means the next junction. A short hop across Mile Oak is a smaller job than a run towards Lichfield, under 10 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival in Mile Oak, and what takes place next
The van reaches your car anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside St. Barnabas Church, or by Longwood Primary School. Both the work and our price depend on three replies — which liquid, what amount, and if it's run — so we ask. You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off.
Emptying that tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. More than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: crystals build up, some metals are attacked, and nothing clears out on its own, however long it is left. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. We don't go until it has been fired up and is running properly.
Unrun cars mostly need a half-hour visit from the moment we arrive. The equipment is fine on a live forecourt, and quiet enough for a driveway after dark. Your insurer will ask for the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Mile Oak
Mile Oak is a suburban area in Staffordshire, situated approximately 5.9 miles from Lichfield and 102.8 miles northwest of London. Mile Oak lies inland at an elevation of around 86 metres, near neighbouring areas such as The Bodnetts, Bonehill, and Hopwas. Mile Oak has a population of around 1674 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing.
AdBlue drains around Mile Oak, and Staffordshire beyond
Over B postcodes, our vans that cover Mile Oak — a residential suburb — work the nearby places too, Hopwas and Bonehill among them. A postcode starting B78 3 gets the van to you fastest.
The vehicle remains where it is. Wherever it sits — near Terence's Driving School, in a layby en route to Mile Oak Recreation Ground, on a drive — that is where it is cleared. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Jeremy's Flying Academy.
The short version for Mile Oak people
First, the cap; after that, the tip. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Leave the vehicle switched off then ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, throughout Staffordshire.