Upper Welland: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case put this page down a moment, keep your ignition and motor off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Upper Welland. Not happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page explains the why it happens and the ways to prevent it for good.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads around Upper Welland and Malvern Wells carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Plenty of vehicles have a single flap for both, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at each filling station call-out, week in, week out. The AdBlue side is filled far less frequently, usually from a bottle, and usually by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake grows in the gap between the two.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen around Upper Welland?
Carelessness rarely causes it. What does is three things coming up at once.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Watery Lane before work, or in the car park at The Marlbank on the way home.
The old car's cap is where the hand reaches — but a hire car, a new motor or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's a second factor: a strange motor.
A spout-topped bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, after begun, carries on. Whether it happens in Marl Bank or the middle of Upper Welland, it is the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Be it a Upper Welland forecourt or a drive over in Welland, take a couple of seconds over these before any is poured in.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones are often blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones normally don't.
- On plenty of cars, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- Can't find it beside the diesel filler? Then check beneath the bonnet or in the boot — the owner's manual will say which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Colwall, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
On the day the light appears — anywhere you are around Worcestershire — a simple routine to follow.
- Switch off after you park — level ground, motor off, and never rushed by Chase Road on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It seems daft. It works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Find during the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Do not go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Upper Welland already?
Short list, then. First: the motor stays off. The fuel pump starts on many diesels the moment the ignition goes on — so keep it off. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
On a forecourt — Texaco, Gulf or another — the attendants will usually help push the vehicle clear, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Upper Welland.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next junction means the place to come off if you're on the M50, under 5 miles from Upper Welland. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Worcester, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Upper Welland.
What takes place when our engineers turn up in Upper Welland
Our engineers come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Malvern Wells CofE Primary School, close to Upper Welland Methodist Church or on your own drive. Both the work and the quote depend on three replies — which liquid, which amount, and whether it has run — so our engineers ask. No one heads out before you've had our quote by phone.
The fuel system is then cleaned thoroughly, once that tank is drained. With AdBlue that matters 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. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. We don't go until it has been fired up and is running properly.
If the motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Upper Welland
Upper Welland is a village situated on the banks of the River Welland in Worcestershire, with a mix of rural and riverside environments. Upper Welland has a relatively low elevation of 86 metres and is located near several other small settlements, including Marl Bank and Little Malvern. Upper Welland remains a small, predominantly residential community with a high proportion of detached housing.
AdBlue drains in Upper Welland and across Worcestershire
Over WR postcodes, the vans covering Upper Welland — a village — work the nearby places too, Wynds Point and Little Malvern included. A postcode starting WR14 4 gets our van to you fastest.
Shifting the car isn't needed. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near Saint Wulstan, a lay-by on the way to St. Wulstan's Local Nature Reserve, a driveway. Awkward to explain, like the back of Sir Edward Elgar's Grave? By a county line? Checking beats guessing, and so ring.
Upper Welland motorists: the short version
Always, the cap; then, the tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere around Worcestershire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless — and so leave the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.