Bedlinog: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does the engine. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. As it is water-based, it won't burn and won't blend with diesel; trouble just starts once your pump begins pulling it. If your motor hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and thoroughly rinsed where the vehicle stands around Bedlinog. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Bedlinog
Do:
- Pocket your keys, which prevents someone turning the power on.
- Close to moving traffic? So put your hazards on.
- Which product, and roughly how much volume? Hang on to the bottle or the receipt, and our technicians will know.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting CF46 6, or the name of the closest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Don't:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll the car: the engine remains off.
- The ignition stays off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to run the pump.
- Adding more diesel does not work: AdBlue settles out instead of blending.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, even a short stretch along Mary Street.
- No emptying it yourself, either, on the roadside.
The attendants on duty at any Bedlinog forecourt — the Gulf Treharris Service Station among them — will usually lend a hand rolling it clear if you ask. Parked on your own drive? Then it stays exactly where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The motor isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it acts very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. Heavier than diesel, it drops and pools below it — the same place the pickup sucks from. The first thing the system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a motor that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Troedyrhiw last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has drawn it in.
Two kinds of harm come 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, so it keeps labouring on the parts it reaches for as long as it remains there. A vehicle left standing around Bedlinog with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank is not. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and each injector as it passes; water offers none of that, and that is a separate kind of harm.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel often the bigger fault?
Fill a diesel with petrol in error over at the Esso, and the problem is diluted fuel. No damage comes as long as it sits unused, blended into your diesel — only when the motor runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It cannot simply be run through, since it doesn't burn. Crystals and corrosion remain after the next tankful, and AdBlue separates back from your diesel, so thinning it can't work. That is why the flush counts more, and trying your engine "to see" does more harm here than almost any other slip — in Pen-y-bank or the centre of Bedlinog alike.
As with petrol, there's good news. Anywhere across Merthyr Tydfil the car has stopped, an unstarted engine leaves the AdBlue yet in the tank: the easiest part of any fuel system to empty.
Bedlinog: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many vehicles sits right next to your diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It mostly happens at home, from a bottle grabbed en route home, rather than at the forecourt.
Mostly, it happens in one of a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside the local primary school. A driver tips the bottle in outside their house, just off High Street, as the day ends. One more version: darkness, a pub car park by The Bedlinog Inn, and a driver opening that flap for the first time.
It comes up most in a rental, a brand-new motor, a fleet car, or the other vehicle in a family with both fuels — the vehicles drivers use least. Leave it off: that's the first response to the same slip, anywhere around Bedlinog or the rest of Merthyr Tydfil you are.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Bedlinog?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. The filter and pipework have had it pulled through, and any running time takes it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Perhaps coming back from Nant Llwynog Park, or part way across Bedlinog, the engine may go lumpy, smoke, lose pace, flash your dash or stall. No starting it again to test: stop once safe, then switch it off. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Bedlinog sits under 15 miles from the M4; if you were on it, exit by the next junction and pull up somewhere safe rather than driving on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Bedlinog to the car park by Bethel Chapel is a very different job from a run towards Newport, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. Let us know about how far it had come.
Wherever the car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush once your engine has been started. When it is spotted early, long-term damage is very uncommon.
Bedlinog: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
We come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Bedlinog: a side street close to Bedlinog Community Centre, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three answers shape the work, and so first we ask what got in, about the amount, and if your motor has run.
The contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one when your tank is drained, right there. Residue from AdBlue will not flush out by itself, and so the fuel system gets a full flush, which matters far more here than with petrol. Next, the fuel filter: flushed, or replaced when it has to be. Then fresh diesel, then a test of the vehicle. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once our technicians get there, provided the engine has not run. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Bleeding the system with new diesel comes at the end. Whether it's a parking bay outside Merthyr Vale or a drive in Bedlinog, that is where our technicians start it and you drive off. Before we go, our technicians make sure it is running properly with fresh diesel in. Because the job is done in its entirety where the car is, a garage never comes into it. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Bedlinog and where it is
Bedlinog is a small village in Merthyr Tydfil, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of 268 metres. Bedlinog has a mix of old and new housing, with terraced homes being the predominant type, and is located near other communities such as Cwmfelin and Merthyr Vale. Bedlinog is relatively small, with a population of around 1040 people, and is within commuting distance of nearby cities like Newport. Bedlinog sits in a scenic area, with the Welsh countryside surrounding it.
Bedlinog and Merthyr Tydfil: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue call-outs in Bedlinog go to teams that cover the places near it — Cwmfelin, Merthyr Vale as well as Aberfan — and most of Merthyr Tydfil further out, across CF postcodes. Near a boundary, or somewhere awkward to explain? Asking is better than assuming, so ring.
A van that comes to you suits Bedlinog, a village: you have no need to take the vehicle to us, since our engineers drain it on the spot, in a drive, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Bedlinog
Since each callouts vary, a flat figure wouldn't be fair. The cost moves first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that went in. After that it rests on where the vehicle is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight space behind Ack Ack Gun Position.
Ahead of a quote, not afterwards, each enquiry from Bedlinog opens with the same three questions: the liquid, the amount, plus whether it ran. When those are answered, a range becomes one fixed number.
Our price is given on the call, before anyone leaves; payment comes on the day, by card or over the phone, and nothing upfront. While the van is on the way, dig out your insurance: many include misfuelling.
Still beside the car around Bedlinog?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, then, the most useful thing open to you. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Bedlinog or anywhere within Merthyr Tydfil.