Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Riverside: Why It Happens
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and the ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Riverside. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Not one fluid but two: that's how plenty of modern diesels around Riverside and Smallwood run, with diesel for the engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream and cleans it.
There's a filler for each tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on a lot of motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Diesel gets filled at each forecourt visit, again and again. Rarely topped up, AdBlue usually comes out of a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think what cap to use. The slip lives in that gap.
Riverside: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things lining up at once.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the car, and running dry leads to limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Terry's Close, perhaps at The Queens Head on the way home that evening.
Then the vehicle is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
No part halts the tip after 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 Abbeydale or the middle of Riverside, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all these take — so check them before you pour anything, on a drive in Enfield or a forecourt in Riverside.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- On many motors, size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many cars have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler is if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Redditch? Check with whoever drove it last before leaving, not when the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
On the day the warning comes on — wherever it is in Worcestershire — a routine to use.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Easemore Road.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. When both share a flap, make sure it's closed before lifting the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Don't go on to stage five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Riverside?
The short order of things, beginning with not starting the motor. Leave the ignition off as well, since on many diesels it alone starts the pump. Thinning it with more diesel won't work, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of blending — and that is where the fuel is sucked from.
On a forecourt — Sainsbury's, BP or another — the staff will normally help roll the car clear, when you ask. If you're on your own drive in Riverside, leave the car where it stands.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if the engine has already run. On the M42, under 3 miles from Riverside, that means the next exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Birmingham, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Riverside.
When we get there around Riverside, what happens?
Wherever your car came to rest, whether outside St Stephen's CofE First School, near Abbeydale Community Club or at home, the van travels to it. Those replies decide this work and our quote, so our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and whether it's run. On the call itself, you hear our price — before dispatch.
Draining that tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the fuel system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and none of it washes out by itself. That is why it matters more. The filter cleaned or, where it must be, swapped; fresh diesel in; and then a check of your car. The engine is fired up next and checked to confirm it runs properly, all before our technicians go.
With pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where your engine has not run need about half an hour after our engineers are there. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. It's worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Riverside and where it is
Riverside is a suburban area in Worcestershire, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of around 100 metres. Riverside lies approximately 11.6 miles southwest of Birmingham and about 95 miles northwest of London, with nearby suburbs including Abbeydale and St Georges. Riverside is characterised by its semi-detached housing stock and a population of around 4012 residents.
AdBlue drains round Riverside, and Worcestershire beyond
St Georges and Redditch are among the places near Riverside, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, throughout B postcodes. Give a postcode that starts B98 8, and the van arrives quickest.
The vehicle stays put. Wherever it sits — beside Forge Mill Needle Museum, on a layby heading to Church Green, on a drive — that is where it gets drained. Guessing doesn't help at the back of Bordesley Abbey Visitor Centre, on a boundary, or anywhere awkward to pin down; phone and check.
For Riverside drivers, the short version
Pour nothing until you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere across Worcestershire, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway — so leave the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103.