How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Ocker Hill
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and your ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Ocker Hill. Reading in advance? Then what follows covers why it happens and how to stop it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads about Ocker Hill and Golds Green carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, and there spraying treats the gas.
There's a filler for each tank. Many of vehicles share a single flap for the two, while others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is topped up at the petrol pump all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less frequently, normally from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
Ocker Hill: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things coming up together.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from your car, and running out leads to limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Cupfields Avenue, or outside Waggon & Horses on the way home after work.
The old car's cap is where the hand reaches — yet a hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That is the second thing: a strange motor.
A spouted bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once started, keeps on. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Ocker Hill or out in Tipton.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these first, on a forecourt around Ocker Hill or a drive over in Great Bridge. A few seconds, no more.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it instead of going by position.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Check inside your fuel flap: many cars carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says which it lives if the filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Dudley Port? Ask whoever drove the car last before leaving, rather than when the light goes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
For the day the warning comes on — anywhere it is in West Midlands — a routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of Bayleys Lane, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off properly.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, yet it works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Stop once that tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip gently through its built-in spout.
- Shut the cap, and look again — making sure your diesel filler remained shut the whole time. Only then, start your car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Skip stage five entirely.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Ocker Hill?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your motor. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the vehicle on. Thinning it with more diesel fails, because AdBlue settles to the base instead of blending — and that's where your fuel is pulled from.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it is the Esso or the City Fuels (HGV Only), ask the staff to help roll your car clear of the pump. If you are on your own drive around Ocker Hill, leave it where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the motor has already run. Ocker Hill lies under 3 miles from the M6; there, use the first exit. Distance matters — a quick hop across Ocker Hill is a smaller job than heading under 10 miles towards Wolverhampton — so say about how far it went.
When we get there around Ocker Hill, what happens?
Wherever the car has stopped, whether outside Ocker Hill Infant School, beside Toll End Methodist Church or at home, our van comes to it. Both the work and the quote depend on three replies — what liquid, what amount, and if it's run — so we ask. The quote comes on the call, before any van leaves.
The system is then cleaned thoroughly, after that tank is emptied. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither clears away unaided. That is why it matters more. Testing comes last: before that, clean diesel is added, and your filter is flushed or replaced if necessary. Your engine is fired up next and checked to make sure it runs smoothly, all before we head off.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor has not run take roughly half an hour once our engineers arrive. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to check yours.
About Ocker Hill, briefly
Ocker Hill is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated on the riverside near Wolverhampton. Ocker Hill sits at an elevation of around 130 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Ocker Hill is located near other nearby places such as Tipton, Toll End, and Golds Hill, and is approximately 5 miles from Wolverhampton city centre. Ocker Hill has a population of around 5809 residents.
AdBlue drains around Ocker Hill and across West Midlands
Ocker Hill is a residential suburb, and the teams that cover it also work the towns around it, Toll End and Golds Hill among them, across the DY postcode area. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting DY4 0.
No need to move the car. Wherever it sits — near St Mark, in a lay-by heading to Black Country Millennium Forest, at home — that's where it is cleared. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Blue Plaque: Cpl. Joseph Davies VC.
The short version for Ocker Hill motorists
Read the cap before you pour. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it stands, anywhere around West Midlands: switch it off then ring 0333 366 0103.