AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Springfield: Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It
Pause reading a minute when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, carried out right where your car sits in Springfield, is normally what it takes if found before your motor runs. The remainder of this page covers why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't — useful if you're reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Not one liquid but two: that is what many modern diesels near Springfield and Hall Green carry, with diesel for your motor. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to clean it, from its own tank.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Some motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place the two together under one flap. Diesel gets filled on every filling station call-out, again and again. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less frequently, usually from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in the gap that the error happens.
Springfield: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things coming up together.
On a driveway off Thirlmere Drive before work, or in the car park at The Horseshoe on the way home: that's where the hurried top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car warns you, and if it is empty, limp mode kicks in.
The old car's cap is where your hand reaches — but a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That is the second factor: a new motor.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, after started, carries on. Whether it occurs in Wake Green or the middle of Springfield, it's the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Showell Green or a forecourt around Springfield.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- The size. On plenty of motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on many motors. Check for it.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it's not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Hall Green? Ask whoever drove it last before you set off, not when the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
On the day the warning appears — wherever it is in West Midlands — a routine to follow.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Wake Green Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both share a flap, make sure it is shut before the bottle comes up.
- Stop when that tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, tip slowly through its own spout.
- Shut the cap, and check once more — making sure the diesel cap stayed shut the whole time. Only then, start the car.
Find during the second or third step that the bottle went into the diesel filler? That's where you stop. Stage five is out.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Springfield?
Don't start your engine: that's where the short order of things begins. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel will not dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of your tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it is the Applegreen or the Pace, ask the attendants to help roll the vehicle away from the pump. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Springfield.
Already run? Stop when it's safe, then turn off. On the Aston Expressway, under 5 miles from Springfield, that means the next exit. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Birmingham, under 5 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Springfield.
Our arrival in Springfield, and what happens next
We come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside St Bernard's Catholic Primary School, close to Sarehole Mill or on your own drive. Which liquid was put in, the amount, and if it ran: our engineers ask because those replies set both work and quote. During the call itself, you hear our quote — before anything else.
Then the tank is emptied and the system cleaned thoroughly. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Once your filter is cleaned — or renewed, if required — clean diesel is added, and then the vehicle is tested. Then we fire it up and confirm it runs properly before we go.
If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. No money 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, take a look at your policy; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Springfield itself
Springfield is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated near the River Rea and close to the city of Birmingham. Springfield has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are the most common, and it is located at an elevation of around 122 metres. Springfield is part of the larger Birmingham urban area, with nearby places including Wake Green, Billesley, and Sparkhill. Springfield is about 3.6 miles from Birmingham city centre and 97.6 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across West Midlands, Springfield included
Being a residential suburb, Springfield has the same vans as surrounding areas — Billesley, Sparkhill — all the way through B postcodes and the wider area around them. Fastest of all: quote a B13 9 postcode for our van.
The vehicle remains put. A drive, a lay-by on the way to The Shire Country Park, a side street close to Blue Plaque: Matthew Boulton: we drain the vehicle where it is. Assuming doesn't help at the back of Burnt Mound, on a boundary, or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and check.
For Springfield people, the short version
Pour nothing till you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave the car off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere around West Midlands.