AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Sharmans Cross: Why It Occurs and How to Stop It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. Around Sharmans Cross, catching it before the engine turns usually leaves draining and a full flush on the spot. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to your motor — yet many current diesels driven round Sharmans Cross and Kineton Green carry a second liquid as well. The exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the gas to fresh it, from its own tank.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. Other cars keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others place both together behind one flap. Diesel goes in at each filling station call-out, again and again. Seldom topped up, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think which filler it needs. It's in the gap that the slip happens.
Sharmans Cross: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the vehicle, and running out leads to limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Danford Lane, perhaps at the pub in the village on the way home that evening.
Then your car is strange. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once begun, carries on. Blossomfield or the heart of Sharmans Cross: it is the same few seconds in both.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Whether a Sharmans Cross forecourt or a drive over in Shirley Heath, spend a couple of seconds over these before any goes in.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue ones are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually are not.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of motors have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler is if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Solihull, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
The day the light comes on, anywhere around West Midlands, use this routine.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Sharmans Cross Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It seems daft. It does the trick.
- The two behind a single flap? So confirm the cap on your diesel filler stays shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, and look once more — confirm the diesel cap stayed shut throughout. After that, start the car.
Find during the second or third step that AdBlue went in the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Stage five stays out.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Sharmans Cross?
Brief order, then. First: your motor stays off. Leave your ignition off too, because on many diesels it alone runs your pump. Filling up with diesel will not weaken it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of the tank, just where fuel is taken from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it is the BP or the Shell, ask the staff to help roll the vehicle away from the pump. At home in Sharmans Cross? So your car remains put.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your motor has already run. On the M42, under 3 miles from Sharmans Cross, that means the next junction. A short hop across Sharmans Cross is a smaller job than a run towards Birmingham, under 10 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
What takes place when our technicians turn up around Sharmans Cross
Wherever the car has stopped, be it by Sharmans Cross Junior School, near Shirley Methodist Church or on your own drive, the van travels to it. Those replies decide this work and our price, so our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and if it has run. No one sets off until you have heard the quote over the phone.
The system is then purged thoroughly, after that tank is cleared. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. Once your filter is cleaned — or replaced, if required — clean diesel goes in, and then the car is tested. Before we leave, our technicians start it and confirm that it's running correctly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after we get there, as long as your engine has not run — and the pumps we use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. Your insurer will ask for the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment is on the day, with no deposit. It's worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Sharmans Cross itself
Sharmans Cross is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated approximately 6 miles south of Birmingham city centre. Sharmans Cross sits at an elevation of around 140 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation in the area. Sharmans Cross is close to nearby places such as Blossomfield and Shirley, and is about 95 miles northwest of London.
AdBlue drains round Sharmans Cross, and West Midlands beyond
Shirley Street and Shirley are among the towns near Sharmans Cross, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, over B postcodes. Give a postcode that starts B91 1, and our van gets there fastest.
The car does not need to shift. Wherever it stands — near Solihull & District Hebrew Congregation, on a layby heading to Silhill FC, on a drive — that is where it gets cleared. Awkward to explain, like the back of St Michael's Chapel? Close to a border? Checking beats guessing, so ring.
The short version for Sharmans Cross people
First, the cap; after that, the pour. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it sits, anywhere in West Midlands.