Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Ryders Green
Leave the motor and ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before your engine runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Ryders Green. Nothing happened yet? Below, the page explains the why it happens and the how to prevent it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Not one fluid but two: that's what many modern diesels near Ryders Green and Albion carry, with diesel for the engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Each tank has its own filler. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have both side by side under one flap. Filling your diesel side at the pump happens all the time. Far less often, the AdBlue side is topped up — normally from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank take place in Ryders Green?
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Ryders Green Road before work, or in the car park at The Tame Bridge on the way home.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, once begun, carries on. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Ryders Green or out in Greets Green.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt around Ryders Green or a drive over in Harvills Hawthorn. A few seconds, no more.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally don't.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Look inside the fuel flap: many motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Dudley Port.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
On the day the light comes on — wherever you are around West Midlands — a simple routine to use.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Hadley Bridge.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, yet it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the vehicle, close the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap never opened off.
Discover at the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the diesel tank? That's where you stop. Leave out step five entirely.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Ryders Green?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the motor. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels as soon as your ignition is switched on — so leave it off. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
The staff at BP, Applegreen or another forecourt will usually lend a hand pushing the vehicle clear when asked. Your own drive in Ryders Green is where it stays.
Already started? Stop once it's safe, then switch off. The next exit means where to come off if you are on the M5, under 3 miles from Ryders Green. Mileage matters — a short hop across Ryders Green is a smaller job than heading under 10 miles towards Birmingham — so tell us about how far it went.
What happens when we get there in Ryders Green
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Ryders Green Primary School, close to Ryders Green Methodist Church or on your own driveway. What liquid went in, the amount, and if it ran: we ask since the replies decide both work and quote. You hear that quote by phone, before anyone sets off.
Then the tank is emptied and the fuel system flushed thoroughly. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes out unaided. That is why it matters more. Filter flushed or, where it must be, swapped; clean diesel in; then a test of your vehicle. Before we leave, our technicians fire it up and make sure that it is running properly.
Unstarted vehicles mostly need a half-hour job from arrival. The kit is fine on a busy forecourt, and quiet enough for a driveway late at night. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Ryders Green itself
Ryders Green is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated near the River Tame and close to the cities of Birmingham and Wolverhampton. Ryders Green has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are the most common, and its population is around 4202 people. Ryders Green is located near other local areas such as Greets Green, Swan Village, and New Town, and is about 5.9 miles from Birmingham city centre. Ryders Green sits at an elevation of approximately 140 metres above sea level, in a riverside setting that offers scenic views and outdoor recreational opportunities.
AdBlue drains across West Midlands, Ryders Green included
Ryders Green is a residential suburb, and our vans that cover it also work the places near it, Swan Village and New Town among them, across the B postcode area. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting B70 0.
Shifting your car isn't needed. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near United Pentecostal Church of God, a lay-by on the way to Black Country Millennium Forest, a drive. Assuming won't help at the back of Farley Park Community Centre, on a border, or somewhere hard to describe; phone and ask.
For Ryders Green people, the short version
First, the cap; then, the pour. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it sits, anywhere across West Midlands.