Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Wightwick Manor: Why It Happens
Pause reading a minute when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Normally, when the engine hasn't turned, it's drained and fully purged where your car sits around Wightwick Manor. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Many newer diesels on the roads round Wightwick Manor and Perton carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the fumes to fresh it, from its own tank.
Different tanks, different fillers. Plenty of vehicles share a single flap for the two, whereas some move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally goes in from a bottle, poured by a driver who has to stop and think what cap to use. The mistake lives in that gap.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Wightwick Manor: how it happens
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Tinacre Hill before work, or in the car park at The Mermaid on the way home.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
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 once it has started. Whether it occurs in Wightwick or the middle of Wightwick Manor, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Tettenhall Wood or a forecourt around Wightwick Manor, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — many motors show which belongs in which inlet just there.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by the diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Bilbrook? Ask whoever drove the car last before you set off, rather than when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
The day the light comes on, wherever across Staffordshire, use this routine.
- Switch off after you park — level ground, motor off, and not rushed by Heath Hill Road at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Stop once that tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; until then, pour slowly using its own spout.
- Shut the cap, then check once more — confirm the diesel filler stayed closed the whole time. After that, start your car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Do not go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Wightwick Manor?
The short order of things, beginning with not starting your motor. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment your ignition is switched on — and so leave it off. Diluting it with extra diesel won't work, since AdBlue sinks to the base rather than mixing — and that is where the fuel is drawn from.
The attendants at Sainsbury's, Shell or another forecourt will usually lend a hand pushing the vehicle away if asked. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Wightwick Manor.
Already run? Pull over once it is sensible, then turn off. The next exit means where to come off when you're on the M54, under 5 miles from Wightwick Manor. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Wolverhampton, under 5 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Wightwick Manor.
When we turn up in Wightwick Manor, what occurs?
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Perton Primary Academy, near Mander War Memorial or on your own drive. The answers decide the work and our price, so we ask what got in, about how much, and if it has run. On the call itself, you hear our price — before dispatch.
Emptying the tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the fuel system. Much more than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: crystals build up, certain metals are attacked, and none of that washes away unaided, no matter how long it is left. Filter flushed or, where needed, replaced; clean diesel in; then a check of the vehicle. Your engine is started next and tested to make sure it runs properly, all before we head off.
With pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the engine has not run need roughly half an hour once we arrive. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both once this job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Wightwick Manor
Wightwick Manor is a locality situated on the riverside in Staffordshire, with an elevation of around 125 metres, and is located approximately 3 miles west of Wolverhampton. Wightwick Manor forms part of the wider West Midlands region, with the nearest major city being Wolverhampton and the nearest town being Wightwick. Wightwick Manor is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its suburban nature.
Wightwick Manor and Staffordshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Castlecroft and Old Perton are among the towns near Wightwick Manor, a neighbourhood, that the same teams cover, over WV postcodes. A postcode starting WV6 8 gets our van to you fastest.
Your car stays put. Draining takes place right there, be it a driveway, a road near a street just off the centre, or a lay-by on the way to Wightwick Wedge. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Church of the Good Shepherd.
For Wightwick Manor people, the short version
Tip no AdBlue until you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it waits, anywhere around Staffordshire.