How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bettws
Pause reading a minute when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Normally, if your engine hasn't run, it is drained and thoroughly flushed where the vehicle is in Bettws. Here before the event? Then the rest explains how it comes about and how to stop it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Not one liquid but two: that is what many newer diesels around Bettws and Croes-y-mwyalch carry, with diesel feeding the engine. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There is a filler for each tank. Many of motors share a single flap for both, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in on every filling station call-out, week in, week out. Far less often, the AdBlue side is filled — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. It's in the gap that the error lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place in Bettws
Carelessness seldom causes it. What does is three things coming up at once.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Yeo Road before work, or in the car park outside The Nightingale on the way home.
Next, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — since a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
Nothing halts the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Malpas or the middle of Bettws: it takes the same few seconds either way.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Be it a Bettws forecourt or a driveway over in Ridgeway, spend a few seconds on these before any is poured in.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- Can't find it next to your diesel filler? Then check beneath the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook will say where.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park at Newport (South Wales), ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
Wherever around Newport the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Humber Road, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" out loud as unscrewing it. It seems daft. It works.
- The two under a single flap? So make sure the lid on the diesel side stays shut before lifting the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Don't carry on to step five.
Bettws: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Short order, then. First: the motor remains unstarted. Leave the ignition off as well, because on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself runs your fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
The staff at Texaco, BP or any forecourt will normally lend a hand to push your car away when you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own drive in Bettws.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. Come off the M4 — under a mile out of Bettws — at the next exit. A short hop across Bettws is a smaller job than a run towards Newport, under 3 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
What occurs when our technicians arrive around Bettws
Outside the local primary school, near Colin Baker or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Which fluid got in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our engineers ask because the answers set the work and price. No one heads out until you've heard our price over the phone.
After that: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. More than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: crystals form, some metals are attacked, and none of it washes out unaided, however long it is left. Filter cleaned or, if it must be, replaced; fresh diesel in; then a test of your vehicle. Your engine is started next and checked to be sure it runs properly, all before our technicians head off.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once our technicians get there, provided the motor hasn't run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a live forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. No money upfront; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. It's worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Bettws
Bettws is a suburban area in Newport, situated on the riverside at an elevation of around 55 metres. Bettws lies close to the city centre, approximately 1.9 miles from Newport, and is near other local areas such as Malpas and Brynglas. Bettws is characterized by its predominantly terraced housing stock, reflecting its development as a residential area. Bettws forms part of the wider Newport urban area, with easy access to the city's amenities.
AdBlue drains across Newport, Bettws included
As a residential suburb, Bettws shares its vans surrounding places — Barrack Hill, Brynglas — right across NP postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Give a postcode beginning NP20 7, and the van gets there quickest.
Shifting the vehicle is not necessary. Wherever it stands — near Saint David Lewis, in a lay-by en route to Coed Garw, on a drive — that's where it gets drained. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Malpas Mill Driving Cog.
In short, for Bettws drivers
First, the cap; after that, the pour. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave the car off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it sits, anywhere in Newport.