Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Yew Tree
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then set this page down for now, keep your ignition and motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Yew Tree. The remainder of this page covers why it takes place and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you're reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
No single liquid but two: that's how many newer diesels near Yew Tree and Palfrey run, with diesel for the engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
Every tank comes with a filler of its own. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on many motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Diesel gets filled at every filling station visit, week in, week out. Much less often, the AdBlue side gets topped up — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. It is in that gap that the error happens.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens around Yew Tree
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car 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 Lupin Grove before work, or in the car park at The Orchard on the way home.
New-to-you motors are second, as well. Hire cars, new motors and company cars put their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
No part halts the tip once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Yew Tree or out in The Delves.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Great Barr or a forecourt in Yew Tree, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally don't.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on many motors. Check for it.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check when you collect a hire car or company car — from Tame Bridge Parkway's car park, perhaps — rather than once the warning appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
Wherever around West Midlands the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, motor stopped, and never in a rush beside Larchwood Green at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both sit under a flap, confirm it is shut before the bottle comes up.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and look again — confirm your diesel cap remained closed the whole time. Only then, start your car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Leave out step five entirely.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Yew Tree already?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment your ignition goes on — so keep it off. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
On a forecourt — BP, Shell or any other — the attendants will usually help roll the car away, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway in Yew Tree.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Come off the M6 — under a mile out of Yew Tree — at the first exit. About how far did it go? Crossing Yew Tree is smaller work than a run of under 10 miles towards Birmingham, and so say.
When our engineers turn up in Yew Tree, what occurs?
Wherever the car has stopped, be it outside Yew Tree Primary School, near Church of the Annunciation Of Our Lady or on your own drive, our van comes to it. Which fluid went in, the amount, and whether it ran: we ask because the answers set both work and price. During the phone call itself, you are told our quote — ahead of dispatch.
Emptying the tank comes next, then a full flush of the system. Much more than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: crystals form, certain metals corrode, and nothing washes away unaided, no matter how long it is left. After your filter has been cleaned — or replaced, where required — clean diesel is added, and finally your car gets tested. Next our technicians start the car and check it runs properly before we go.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once we arrive, as long as the engine hasn't run — and the pumps we use are fine on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. It is worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Yew Tree and where it is
Yew Tree is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated near the River Tame and approximately 6 miles west of Birmingham city centre. Yew Tree sits at an elevation of around 125 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation in the area. Yew Tree is located close to other nearby places such as The Delves, Grove Vale, and Friar Park, and is about 106.5 miles northwest of London.
AdBlue drains in Yew Tree and across West Midlands
As a residential suburb, Yew Tree has the same vans as surrounding places — Grove Vale, Friar Park — right across WS postcodes and the wider area around them. Give a postcode that starts WS5 4, and the van arrives quickest.
There's no need to move the vehicle. The drain takes place on the spot, whether a drive, a street by Yew Tree & Tamebridge Community Centre, or a lay-by towards Brooklands Playing Fields. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of St Josephs, ring and ask instead of guessing.
For Yew Tree drivers, the short version
Tip nothing till you have read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it stands, anywhere across West Midlands: keep the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.