Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Winson Green: Why It Occurs
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, carried out right where the car sits around Winson Green, is usually what it takes when caught before your motor runs. Here in advance? Then the rest covers how it comes about and how to prevent it ever happening.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Many modern diesels on the roads about Winson Green and Gib Heath carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Every tank has a filler of its own. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have the two together under one flap. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in the gap that the mistake lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Winson Green: how it occurs
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from your car, and running dry means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Aberdeen Street, perhaps at The Acorn on the way home after work.
The old car's filler is where your hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is a second factor: a strange vehicle.
Lastly, the bottle goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in just as readily, and once the tip starts, no part halts it. Merry Hill or the middle of Winson Green: it is the same few seconds in both.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A couple of seconds is all these take — so check them before you tip anything, on a driveway in Rotton Park or a forecourt in Winson Green.
- Read the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally aren't.
- The size. On plenty of motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Look for it.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Jewellery Quarter, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in West Midlands that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Winson Green Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It sounds silly. It works.
- Both behind a single flap? So make sure the cap on the diesel side stays closed ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Stop once that tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; before that, pour slowly through its built-in spout.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap never opened off.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Do not go on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Winson Green?
Brief order, then. First: the engine stays off. The fuel pump runs on many diesels the moment your ignition is switched on — and so leave it off. Thinning it with more diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of mixing — and that's where your fuel is drawn from.
If you're on a forecourt, whether it's the Harvest Energy or the Murco, ask the attendants to help push the car away from the pump. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around Winson Green.
Already run? Pull over once it is safe, then switch off. The next junction means the place to come off when you are on the Aston Expressway, under 3 miles from Winson Green. Distance counts — a quick hop across Winson Green is a smaller job than driving under 3 miles towards Birmingham — so say roughly how far it went.
Our arrival around Winson Green, and what happens next
We come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Summerfield Primary School, close to Church of God of Prophecy or on your own driveway. The answers determine the work and the quote, so our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and whether it's run. During the phone call itself, you hear the price — ahead of anything else.
Then that tank is emptied and your system purged thoroughly. More than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: the crystals build up, some metals are attacked, and none of that clears out on its own, no matter how long it sits. Once the filter has been cleaned — or replaced, if needed — fresh diesel is added, and finally your car gets tested. We don't go until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour once we arrive, as long as the motor has not run — and the pumps we use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. While we travel, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Winson Green, for a moment
Winson Green is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated on the riverside near Birmingham. Winson Green has a mix of terraced housing and local amenities, with nearby attractions including Summerfield Park. Winson Green is located close to the city centre, approximately 1.6 miles from Birmingham, and is also near other local areas such as Merry Hill and Black Patch.
AdBlue drains across West Midlands, Winson Green included
Winson Green is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the places around it, Black Patch and Summerfield Park among them, across the B postcode area. Fastest of all: quote a B18 4 postcode to the van.
Shifting the vehicle is not necessary. Draining takes place right there, be it a drive, a road near Centre of the Earth, or a layby towards Norman Street. Awkward to explain, like the back of Black British History? By a county line? Checking beats guessing, so ring.
For Winson Green drivers, the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep the car switched off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, across West Midlands.