Shifnal: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Leave your motor and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before the engine runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Shifnal. Reading in advance? In that case the rest explains why it happens and how to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
No single fluid but two: that's what plenty of newer diesels around Shifnal and Nedge Hill carry, with diesel for your engine. The exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to clean it, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that's the layout on many motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump happens constantly. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes usually fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. It's in that gap that the slip lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place around Shifnal
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a drive off High Street before work, or in the car park outside White Hart heading home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle warns you, and if it's gone, limp mode follows.
The old car's cap is where the hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That is a second thing: a strange motor.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip after it has started. Haughton or the middle of Shifnal: it is the same few seconds either way.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt in Shifnal or a driveway out in Redhill. Seconds, no more.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually aren't.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on many motors. Look for it.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Check with 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 at the nearest station.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Shropshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Curriers Lane, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park and switch off first.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave the car on.
- Slowly does it, 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.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Stage five stays out.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Shifnal?
Short list, then. First: the engine stays unstarted. Keep the ignition off too, because on many diesels it alone runs your pump. Topping up with diesel won't dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of the tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it is the Shell or the another forecourt nearby, ask the staff to help push your car clear of the petrol pump. Your own drive around Shifnal is where it should stay.
Already run? Pull over when it's sensible, then turn off. Come off the M54 — under a mile out of Shifnal — at the next junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Wolverhampton, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Shifnal.
What takes place when our technicians turn up in Shifnal
Anywhere your car has stopped, whether outside Shifnal Primary School, beside Shifnal Library or at home, our van comes to it. We ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it has run, since the replies determine the work and our quote. No one sets off before you have heard the price over the phone.
The system is then purged thoroughly, after the tank is drained. 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 matters more here than with petrol. Filter cleaned or, if it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; then a check of your vehicle. The motor is started next and tested to confirm it runs correctly, all before we head off.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor has not run need roughly half an hour after we are there. Nothing upfront; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Before we get there, have a look at your policy; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Shifnal and where it is
Shifnal is a village in Shropshire, situated on the banks of the River Worfe at an elevation of around 92 metres. Shifnal lies approximately 11 miles from Wolverhampton and 125 miles northwest of London, within the West Midlands region. Shifnal has a mix of housing types, with semi-detached homes being particularly prevalent, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Haughton and The Wyke. Shifnal is home to around 2822 residents, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains across Shropshire, Shifnal included
Throughout TF postcodes, the teams covering Shifnal — a village — work the surrounding places too, Crackleybank and The Wyke included. Fastest of all: quote a TF11 8 postcode for our van.
There's no need to shift the car. We drain it where it is — a side street near Saint Andrew, a lay-by on the way to Wheatfield Drive Recreation Area, a driveway. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Old Windmill, ring and ask instead of assuming.
In short, for Shifnal motorists
Read the cap before you tip. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it wherever it stands, wherever in Shropshire: keep the car off and call 0333 366 0103.