Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Old Fallings
Pause reading for a moment when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then phone 0333 366 0103. Around Old Fallings, finding it before your motor turns usually leaves draining and a full flush where it stands. The rest of this page covers why it takes place and how to make sure it does not — useful if you're reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Not one fluid but two: that's what many newer diesels around Old Fallings and Scotlands run, with diesel feeding your motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust stream and cleans it.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Filling the diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. Much less frequently, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
Old Fallings: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Old Fallings Lane before work, or in the car park at Golden Lion on the way home.
Unfamiliar vehicles are second, too. Rentals, new vehicles and company motors put their fillers differently, and the hand reaches for the cap used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the pour after it has started. It's a few seconds, be it out in Newbolds or bang in the centre of Old Fallings.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Whether a Old Fallings forecourt or a drive out in New Cross, spend a couple of seconds on these before any goes in.
- Check the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- On many vehicles, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows which it lives if the filler is not next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Wolverhampton, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around West Midlands that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Fifth Avenue.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Stage five stays off limits.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Old Fallings?
Short order, then. Top of that: the engine stays unstarted. Keep the ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels it alone runs your fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the staff to help push the car away from the petrol pump if you are at a forecourt — the Esso, the Texaco or anywhere else. At home in Old Fallings? So the vehicle remains where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your motor has already run. On the M54, under 3 miles from Old Fallings, that means the next exit. A short hop across Old Fallings is a smaller job than a run towards Wolverhampton, under 3 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
When our technicians arrive in Old Fallings, what happens?
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Fallings Park Primary School, close to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour Catholic Church or on your own drive. Both the work and our quote rest on three answers — what fluid, what amount, and whether it has run — so we ask. You get that price by phone, before anybody heads out.
Then the tank is cleared and the system rinsed thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more here than with petrol. Filter cleaned or, if it must be, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a check of the vehicle. Your engine is fired up next and checked to be sure it runs smoothly, all before our engineers leave.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour once we arrive, provided your motor has not run — and the pumps we use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet at night beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It's worth checking your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Old Fallings and where it is
Old Fallings is a suburban area located near Wolverhampton in the West Midlands, sitting at an elevation of around 149 metres. Old Fallings is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, reflecting the typical residential development of the region. Old Fallings is situated close to nearby places such as Newbolds, Low Hill, and Bushbury Hill, and is approximately 1.9 miles from Wolverhampton city centre.
Old Fallings and West Midlands: AdBlue drains across the area
Old Fallings is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the places near it, Low Hill and Bushbury Hill among them, across the WV postcode area. Give a postcode that starts WV10 8, and our van arrives fastest.
Moving your car isn't needed. Anywhere it sits — near The Good Shepherd, on a lay-by en route to Black Country Millennium Forest, on a drive — that's where it gets cleared. Tricky to explain, like the back of Low Hill Library? Close to a county line? Asking beats assuming, and so phone.
In short, for Old Fallings people
Always, the cap; then, the pour. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it wherever it stands, anywhere in West Midlands: keep it off and phone 0333 366 0103.