Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Pensnett
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, done right where your vehicle stands in Pensnett, is normally all it takes when found before your motor runs. Here before the event? Then the rest explains why it happens and what to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel goes to the engine — yet many current diesels seen around Pensnett and Holly Hall carry another liquid too. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to fresh them, from its own tank.
Every tank has one filler of its own. Other vehicles put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place the two together under one flap. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less regularly, normally from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
Pensnett: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
On a drive off Queen Street before work, or in the car park at High Oak on the way home: that is where the rushed top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car tells you, and once it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
Next, your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old motor — because a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the pour after it has started. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Pensnett or out in Bromley.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these first, at a forecourt in Pensnett or a driveway out in Woodside. A few seconds, that's all.
- Read the cap instead of going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally are not.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on many cars. Look for it.
- Cannot find it next to your diesel filler? Then check below the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Cradley Heath? Check with the person who drove it last before you set off, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
For the day the light appears — anywhere you are across West Midlands — a routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of Commonside, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and 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.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Step five stays off limits.
Pensnett: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Brief list, then. Top of it: your engine stays off. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the vehicle on. Filling up with diesel won't weaken it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of that tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
The staff at BP, another forecourt nearby or another forecourt will usually help to push the vehicle clear when asked. Your own driveway in Pensnett is where it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. Pensnett sits under 5 miles from the M5; there, take the next exit. Mileage counts — a quick hop across Pensnett is a smaller job than heading under 10 miles to Wolverhampton — so tell us roughly how far it went.
Pensnett: what happens when we get there
By The Bromley-Pensnett Primary School, close to Fens Pool Community Center or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, we come to it. Those replies settle the work and the quote, so we ask what got in, about how much, and if it has run. During the phone call itself, you hear the quote — ahead of dispatch.
Then that tank is drained and the fuel system cleaned thoroughly. More than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: crystals build up, some metals corrode, and nothing clears away unaided, however long it is left. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. After that our engineers fire it up and confirm it runs smoothly before leaving.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after we get there, as long as the engine has not run — and the pumps we use are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Pensnett
Pensnett is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated near several lakes and water features, with an elevation of around 135 metres. Pensnett lies approximately 6 miles from Wolverhampton and 109 miles from London, making it a commuter base for the wider region. Pensnett has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are particularly prevalent in the area. Pensnett is close to nearby places such as Bromley, Brockmoor, and Harts Hill.
AdBlue drains across West Midlands, Pensnett included
Pensnett is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the places near it, Brockmoor and Harts Hill among them, across the DY postcode area. Fastest of all: give a DY5 4 postcode for the van.
The car stays where it is. We drain it where it is — a side street near St Mark, a lay-by on the way to Black Country Millennium Forest, a drive. Tricky to explain, like the back of Brockmoor Community Centre? By a county line? Asking is better than assuming, so phone.
Pensnett people: the short version
Always, the cap; after that, the tip. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it wherever it stands, anywhere in West Midlands: keep the car off then ring 0333 366 0103.