AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Yoxall: How It Happens and How to Avoid It
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? In that case set this page aside for now, leave the ignition and engine off, then ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, done just where your car sits around Yoxall, is normally what it takes when caught before the engine runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Diesel goes to your engine — yet plenty of current diesels driven round Yoxall and Woodlane carry another liquid as well. The exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to clean it, from its own tank.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. Many of vehicles share a single flap for both, while others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, the diesel side gets filled constantly. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. The mistake lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs in Yoxall
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a drive off Bond End before work, or in the car park at The Golden Cup heading home: that's where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the car warns you, and if it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
Unfamiliar cars are next, too. Hire cars, new motors and company vehicles place their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap 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 after it has started. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Yoxall or out in Weaverslake.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Yoxall forecourt or a drive over in Hadley End, take a couple of seconds on these before any goes in.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on many motors. Look for it.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Lichfield Trent Valley.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
Wherever in Staffordshire the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Main Street.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, confirm it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Stop when your tank fills or the bottle runs dry; before that, tip gently using its own spout.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Leave out stage five altogether.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Yoxall?
Short order, then. Top of that: your motor remains off. The fuel pump runs on many diesels as soon as the ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Filling up with diesel will not dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of that tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — Gulf, another forecourt nearby or another — the staff will usually help push your car away, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway in Yoxall.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Leave the M6 Toll — under 10 miles out of Yoxall — at the next junction. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Yoxall makes a smaller job than heading under 10 miles to Lichfield — so tell us roughly how far it went.
What happens when our technicians arrive in Yoxall
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside Yoxall St Peter's CofE Primary School, close to St Peter or on your own drive. What fluid went in, the amount, and whether it ran: our technicians ask since the replies set the work and price. You hear that price on the phone, before anyone heads out.
Then the tank is drained and the system purged thoroughly. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither clears out by itself. Hence it counts more. A test is at the end: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is cleaned or replaced as needed. Your engine is fired up next and checked to be sure it runs smoothly, all before we leave.
If the engine 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. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Yoxall, for a moment
Yoxall is a village in Staffordshire, situated on the banks of the River Trent at an elevation of around 65 metres. Yoxall lies approximately 6 miles from the city of Lichfield and is surrounded by nearby places such as Weaverslake, Morrey, and Woodhouses. Yoxall has a population of around 1174 people and predominantly features detached housing.
AdBlue drains around Yoxall and across Staffordshire
Being a village, Yoxall shares its vans nearby areas — Morrey, Woodhouses — all the way through DE postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Give a postcode that starts DE13 8, and the van gets there fastest.
Moving the car isn't necessary. Wherever it sits — near Wat Mahathat, in a layby heading to Norman's Wood, at home — that's where it gets cleared. Guessing doesn't help at the back of Kings Bromley Village Hall, Alrewas Road, on a boundary, or anywhere hard to describe; phone and check.
For Yoxall people, the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere across Staffordshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — so leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.