Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Aberdulais
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does the engine. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. The trouble starts once it is sucked through your pump — it will not burn, and it will not blend with diesel. If your motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and thoroughly purged where your car sits in Aberdulais. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Aberdulais: the first few minutes
To do:
- Remove your keys, and that stops anyone switching the power on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- The van finds you fastest with a postcode starting SA10 8, or just the name of a street close by, and so phone from the car.
Never do these:
- Do not start the engine, even for a moment to move the car.
- Your ignition remains off: on many diesels, switching it on is enough to start the pump.
- No extra fuel added. The AdBlue will not mix, so it's wasted.
- Leave the vehicle where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short stretch along Fforest Hill.
- No emptying it yourself, either, on the roadside.
The attendants on duty at any Aberdulais filling station — the Morrisons among them — will normally help pushing it aside if you ask. Parked on your own driveway? Then it remains exactly where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Meant for the exhaust, AdBlue has no business in your motor. From a dedicated tank it is fed straight to your exhaust, cleaning what the motor lets out. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Tipped in with the diesel, it keeps apart rather than mixing — quite different from fuel. It sinks, since it's denser than diesel, and settles down where the pickup draws its fuel from. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Cadoxton-Juxta-Neath last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has drawn it in.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps labouring on the parts it hits for as long as it stays there. A motor left sitting in Aberdulais with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank is not. Water protects nothing. The high-pressure pump and each injector depend on diesel running past them, and so the water part harms them in its own right.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel commonly the bigger issue?
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Tesco's forecourt leaves the fuel thin — that's the main problem. Damage only comes from running on it. Blended into the diesel and left inside the tank, it causes nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It can't just be run through, because it doesn't burn. It does not stay mixed, and so it cannot be diluted. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Rhydding or the middle of Aberdulais.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Anywhere in Neath Port Talbot the vehicle has come to rest, an unstarted engine means the AdBlue still inside the tank: the easiest part of a fuel system to clear.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Aberdulais
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many motors rests right next to the diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It mostly occurs outside the house, from a container bought en route home, not at the filling station.
It tends to take place in a couple of familiar ways. The top-up gets hurried outside the local primary school, because the dash lit up with a warning as the children were dropped off. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Dulais Drive. Another pattern: darkness, the car park outside Aberdulais Royal British Legion, and someone opening that flap the first time.
It crops up the most in a rental, a brand-new motor, a company motor, or the other motor of a family with one of each fuels — the cars people know the least. Wherever across Neath Port Talbot, Aberdulais as well, the slip does not change, and nor does the first step: leave it off.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Aberdulais?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer inside your tank. Via your filter, along the pipework, and — with any running — into the high-pressure pump and every injector: that is where it has gone.
Watch for lumpy running, smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a stall — returning from Aberdulais Golf Range & Academy, say, or midway across Aberdulais. No starting it again to check: stop when it is safe, then turn it off. Each start pulls more of that through.
If you were on the M4, under 5 miles from Aberdulais, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible rather than pressing on.
Mileage matters: every mile pushes the AdBlue further into your system, so driving towards Swansea, under 10 miles away, gives a much larger job than crossing Aberdulais to the car park by Aberdulais Falls Visitor Centre. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our engineers do all of the cleaning where the car has come to a stop, and once the engine has run there is more of it. Caught quickly, it very rarely leaves lasting damage.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves in Aberdulais
A street by Aberdulais Tin Works and Waterfall, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station: wherever the car has stopped around Aberdulais, we travel to it. What was put in, roughly the quantity, and if the motor has been run: our technicians check first, since those shape the job.
The contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one when that tank is emptied, on the spot. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing matters: the whole system is cleaned all the way through since residue will not flush out unaided. Fresh diesel goes in after your filter is cleaned — or swapped, if it needs to be — and then the vehicle is tested. Engine not run? In that case count on about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
The final step is to bleed your system on clean diesel. Starting the car comes next, and then you drive off from where the vehicle is parked, at Neath or on a drive in Aberdulais. The test before we leave is that it runs smoothly on clean diesel. As the job is done in its entirety where the vehicle is, a garage never comes into it. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers ask for.
About Aberdulais itself
Aberdulais is a village situated on the River Dulais in south Wales, with a mix of detached housing and a population of around 1896 residents. Aberdulais lies near the towns of Tonna and Cilfrew, and is approximately 8 miles from Swansea. Aberdulais has a relatively low elevation of 21 metres above sea level, reflecting its riverside setting. Aberdulais is part of the Neath Port Talbot county borough, within commuting distance of Swansea and its amenities.
AdBlue drains across Neath Port Talbot, Aberdulais included
Tonna, Cilfrew and Llantwit are among the towns near Aberdulais that the same teams reach, together with most of Neath Port Talbot beyond, throughout the SA postcode area. Ring and ask instead of guessing when you are by a border, or somewhere awkward to explain.
Aberdulais is a village, and a mobile drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it sits, so it never needs to be moved to us.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Aberdulais?
There is no honest single price, because the jobs are not the same. Three things move the cost: whether the motor has run and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where the vehicle is. That last one turns on whether our van can reach it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight spot behind Aberdulais Community Centre.
For that reason, every call from Aberdulais opens with the identical trio — what got in, what quantity, whether the engine ran — before a figure. With those replies, a range shrinks to a single fixed number.
Our price is quoted on the call, before anyone leaves; payment comes on the day, by card or by phone, and nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van gets there.
Still alongside the vehicle around Aberdulais?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to the car. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Say it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, in Aberdulais or anywhere within Neath Port Talbot.