How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Penn
Pause reading for a moment if the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Normally, when your motor hasn't turned, it's emptied and thoroughly cleaned where the car sits in Penn. Here before the event? In that case what follows covers how it comes about and how to stop it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Diesel feeds your motor — yet plenty of modern diesels seen about Penn and Merry Hill carry a second liquid too. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the gas to clean them, from its own tank.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Other vehicles put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more place both together behind one flap. At the petrol pump, the diesel side gets filled constantly. The AdBlue side is filled far less often, normally from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in the gap that the mistake happens.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen in Penn?
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things lining up together.
On a driveway off Canterbury Road before work, or in the car park at The Rose and Crown on the way home: that's where the hurried top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the vehicle warns you, and if it's gone, limp mode kicks in.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Third, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in just as readily, and once the tip begins, no part halts it. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Penn or out in Penn Fields.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt in Penn or a drive out in Goldthorn Hill. Seconds, no more.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue ones are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually aren't.
- On many cars, size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Check inside your fuel flap: many cars carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook says where it is when your filler is not next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Wolverhampton.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in West Midlands that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Regent Road, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off properly.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap works — after you have located the filler and read it.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't carry on to step five.
Penn: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with no starting your motor. Don't switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it is the Texaco or the Esso, ask the staff to help roll the vehicle away from the petrol pump. If you are on your own driveway in Penn, leave the vehicle where it stands.
Already run? Pull over once it's sensible, then turn off. Leave the M54 — under 10 miles out of Penn — at the next junction. Mileage matters — a short hop across Penn makes a smaller job than driving under 3 miles to Wolverhampton — so tell us about how far it went.
What occurs when our technicians get there around Penn
Anywhere the car came to rest, whether by Springdale Primary School, near Penn United Reformed Church or on your own drive, our van comes to it. Those replies decide the work and our quote, and so we ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run. That price comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Your system is then cleaned thoroughly, after that tank is cleared. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and none of that washes away by itself. That is why it matters more. After the fuel filter is flushed — or renewed, if needed — fresh diesel goes in, and finally your car gets tested. Before leaving, we fire it up and make sure that it is running correctly.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour once our technicians get there, provided your motor hasn't run — and the pumps we use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Penn, for a moment
Penn is a suburban area located near Wolverhampton in the West Midlands, sitting at an elevation of 149 metres. Penn is characterised by its semi-detached housing and is situated close to nearby places such as Penn Fields, Oxbarn, and Colton Hills. Penn has a population of approximately 5998 residents and is about 2.1 miles from Wolverhampton city centre. Penn is also relatively close to the Midlands countryside, while being 113 miles northwest of London.
AdBlue drains around Penn, and West Midlands beyond
Penn is a residential suburb, and our vans that cover it also work the towns near it, Oxbarn and Colton Hills among them, across the WV postcode area. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting WV4 4.
No need to shift your car. The drain happens on the spot, be it a driveway, a street by Springdale Methodist Church & Community Centre, or a layby on the way to Black Country Millennium Forest. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Hanbury Lawn Tennis Club.
In short, for Penn people
First, the cap; after that, the pour. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave the car off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it sits, anywhere around West Midlands.