Bridgend: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and the ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, carried out right where the vehicle sits around Bridgend, is usually what it needs when found before your motor runs. Not happened yet? Below, the rest of the page explains the why it occurs and the ways to avoid it for good.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Many current diesels on the roads around Bridgend and Membland carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust gas to clean it.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that's the arrangement on many cars. On others, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. The diesel side is fuelled at the petrol pump all the time. Far less commonly, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. It is in that gap that the error lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Bridgend: how it occurs
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things lining up together.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the car, and letting it run out leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Bridgend Hill, perhaps outside The Dolphin on the way home after work.
Unfamiliar vehicles come next, too. Rentals, new motors and company vehicles put their fillers in new places, and the hand reaches 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 pour once it has started. It takes a few seconds, be it out in Newton Ferrers or right in the centre of Bridgend.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Bridgend forecourt or a drive out in Knighton, take a few seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of vehicles carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler is if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Plymouth? Check with the person who drove it last before leaving, rather than when the light goes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Devon that is.
- Switch off once parked — flat ground, engine stopped, and never in a rush beside Pillory Hill on the verge.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It seems daft. It works.
- The two under a single flap? So make sure the lid on the diesel filler stays closed before lifting the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Leave out stage five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Bridgend?
The short order of things, starting with not starting the motor. The fuel pump runs on many diesels the moment the ignition goes on — and so leave it off. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Valero, Texaco or another forecourt will normally help to push your car clear when asked. On your own drive around Bridgend? So your car stays where it is.
Already run? Stop once it is sensible, then turn off. On the M5, under 50 miles from Bridgend, that means the next junction. About how far did it go? Hopping across Bridgend is less a job than a trip of under 10 miles to Plymouth, and so tell us.
Bridgend: what takes place when we get there
The van comes to the car wherever it stopped — your own drive, beside Newton Ferrers & Noss Mayo WI Community Hall, or outside Newton Ferrers Church of England Primary School. Those replies decide the work and our price, so our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run. You hear that price by phone, before anyone sets off.
Then your tank is drained and your system purged thoroughly. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Once your filter is flushed — or renewed, if needed — fresh diesel goes in, and finally the car is tested. The motor is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs correctly, all before our engineers go.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the engine has not run need about half an hour after our engineers are there. The insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. It's worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Bridgend
Bridgend is a small suburban area in Devon, situated near the coast and approximately 6 miles from Plymouth. Bridgend has a relatively low elevation of 43 metres and is surrounded by nearby places such as Newton Ferrers and Noss Mayo. Bridgend is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its suburban nature. Bridgend is located within the South West region of England, about 189 miles from London.
AdBlue drains in Bridgend and across Devon
Throughout PL postcodes, our vans that cover Bridgend — a residential suburb — work the nearby spots too, The Butts and Noss Mayo included. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting PL8 1.
The vehicle does not need to move. Wherever it stands — beside Holy Cross, in a layby en route to Junket Corner, on a drive — that is where it is drained. Tricky to pin down, like the back of St Peter's Church? By a county line? Checking is better than assuming, and so ring.
The short version for Bridgend motorists
Read the cap before you tip. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave the vehicle switched off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, across Devon.