Tividale Hall: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Keep your motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. A drain plus a full flush, carried out right where the car sits around Tividale Hall, is normally all it takes when found before your motor runs. Reading in advance? Then what follows covers why it comes about and how to stop it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
No single fluid but two: that's what plenty of newer diesels around Tividale Hall and Grace Mary Estate carry, with diesel for the motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Other vehicles put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have both together under one flap. Diesel goes in at every filling station visit, week in, week out. The AdBlue side is filled far less often, normally from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in that gap that the error happens.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Tividale Hall: how it takes place
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Regent Road before work, or in the car park outside Albion Inn on the way home.
Next, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old car — since a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
Third, the spout goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in just as readily, and once the tip begins, nothing stops it. Oakham or the middle of Tividale Hall: it takes the same few seconds either way.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Tansley Hill or a forecourt around Tividale Hall, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Plenty of cars fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Check for it.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Dudley Port? Ask the person who drove the vehicle last before leaving, not once the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Wherever in West Midlands the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Barncroft Road.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — after you have found the filler and read it.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two sit under a flap, make sure it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Stop once that tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour gently through the built-in spout.
- Close the cap, then look again — confirm your diesel cap remained closed the whole time. Only then, start the car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Do not go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Tividale Hall?
Brief order, then. Top of it: your motor stays unstarted. The fuel pump starts on many diesels as soon as the ignition goes on — and so keep it off. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is sucked from.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it's the Tesco or the another forecourt nearby, ask the staff to help push the car away from the petrol pump. Your own drive in Tividale Hall is where it stays.
Already started? Stop when it is sensible, then turn off. Tividale Hall lies under 3 miles from the M5; on it, use the next junction. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Wolverhampton, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Tividale Hall.
Our arrival around Tividale Hall, and what takes place next
By Tividale Hall Primary School, close to Darby's Hill Viewpoint or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our technicians come to it. What liquid got in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our engineers ask since the replies decide the work and quote. Nobody heads out until you have heard our price by phone.
After that: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. 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. Testing is at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and your filter is cleaned or replaced if necessary. The motor is started next and tested to confirm it runs smoothly, all before our engineers leave.
If the motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. No money upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. It is worth looking at your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Tividale Hall
Tividale Hall is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated near the River Tame and close to the cities of Wolverhampton and Birmingham. Tividale Hall sits at an elevation of 213 metres, overlooking the surrounding landscape. Tividale Hall is characterized by its semi-detached housing stock, which is typical of many suburban areas in the region.
AdBlue drains across West Midlands, Tividale Hall included
Being a residential suburb, Tividale Hall shares its vans surrounding areas — Cawney Hill, Darbys Hill — right through B postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Quickest of all: give a B69 1 postcode for the van.
Shifting the vehicle is not needed. The drain takes place on the spot, whether a drive, a street near The Beeches- Tividale Football Club, or a layby on the way to Black Country Millennium Forest. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Oakham Evangelical Church.
In short, for Tividale Hall motorists
Pour nothing until you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave it off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere across West Midlands.