How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Streetly
Keep the motor and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Normally, if your engine has not run, it is emptied and fully purged where the car sits around Streetly. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads around Streetly and Barr Common carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on many vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Diesel gets filled at every filling station call-out, week in, week out. The AdBlue side is topped up far less regularly, normally from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in the gap that the slip lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur in Streetly?
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Manor Road before work, or in the car park at Brewhouse micropub on the way home.
The old car's filler is where the hand reaches — but a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That is the second thing: a strange car.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, once begun, carries on. Hardwick or the heart of Streetly: it takes the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Pheasey or a forecourt in Streetly.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Look for it.
- The handbook says which it lives when the filler is not next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- 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 Butlers Lane.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
On the day the warning comes on — anywhere you are in West Midlands — a simple routine to follow.
- Stop somewhere level, motor off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of Bridle Lane.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap works — once you've found the filler and read the cap.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Stop once the tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; before that, tip gently through the own spout.
- Before you start the vehicle, close the cap and look again that the diesel cap was never came off.
Find during the second or third step that the bottle went in the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Don't go on to stage five.
Streetly: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with no starting the motor. Leave your ignition off as well, since on many diesels switching it on by itself starts the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel won't thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of that tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help push your car away from the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Shell, the BP or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive around Streetly.
When your engine has run already, stop safely then switch it off. Streetly lies under 3 miles from the M6; on it, use the first junction. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Streetly is a smaller job than heading under 10 miles towards Birmingham — so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival around Streetly, and what happens next
Wherever the car has stopped, whether by Manor Primary School, beside St. Anne's R.C. Church or at home, our van travels to it. We ask what went in, about how much, and whether it has run, because those answers decide this work and the quote. No one heads out until you've had the price over the phone.
Then your tank is emptied and your system flushed 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 does not wash out on its own. Filter flushed or, where it must be, swapped; clean diesel in; then a check of your car. Before leaving, our technicians start the engine and make sure that it's running properly.
If the motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours once this job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Streetly
Streetly is a locality in the West Midlands, situated approximately 6.8 miles north of Birmingham and 105.1 miles northwest of London. Streetly sits at an elevation of around 173 metres, characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock. Streetly is surrounded by nearby places such as Hardwick, Bourne Vale, and Banners Gate, and has a population of around 3472 residents.
Streetly and West Midlands: AdBlue drains across the area
Over B postcodes, our vans that cover Streetly — a small village — work the surrounding places too, Banners Gate and Bourne Vale among them. Quickest of all: quote a B74 2 postcode for our van.
The car stays put. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Foley Wood, a side street close to Streetly Evangelical Church: our technicians drain it where it is. Assuming won't help at the back of Streetly Library, on a boundary, or anywhere awkward to describe; phone and ask.
In short, for Streetly motorists
Tip no AdBlue till you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave it off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it sits, anywhere across West Midlands.