Bronllys: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, done right where your car stands in Bronllys, is usually what it needs when caught before the engine runs. Reading before the event? In that case the rest explains how it happens and what to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
No single fluid but two: that's what many newer diesels around Bronllys and Tredustan run, with diesel for your motor. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where spraying treats the fumes.
Every tank comes with a filler of its own. Plenty of motors have a single flap for the two, while some move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in on each filling station visit, week in, week out. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. The error lives in that gap.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Bronllys: how it happens
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things lining up at once.
On a drive off Neuadd Terrace before work, or in the car park outside The Cock Hotel heading home: that's where the rushed top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and once it's gone, limp mode follows.
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.
Third, the spout fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as readily, and once the tip starts, no part halts it. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Bronllys or out in Pont-y-wal.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Llanfilo or a forecourt around Bronllys, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Position misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue caps are often blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually don't.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Check for it.
- The handbook says which it is if your filler isn't next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside the nearest station, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
On the day the warning comes on — anywhere you are around Powys — a routine to follow.
- Not in a rush on the side of Fosse Way, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It seems silly. It works.
- The diesel cap remains on. When both sit under a flap, make sure it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Before you start the car, close the cap and check again that your diesel cap never came off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Never go on to step five.
Bronllys: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Brief list, then. First: the motor stays off. Don't switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel will not dilute it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of the tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it's the Oil4Wales or the Asda, ask the attendants to help push your car clear of the petrol pump. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive around Bronllys.
Where your motor has been run already, stop somewhere safe then switch the car off. The next junction is the place to leave if you are on the M4, under 50 miles from Bronllys. A short hop across Bronllys is a smaller job than a run towards Hereford, under 25 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Bronllys: what happens when our technicians arrive
By the local primary school, close to Bronllys Church or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Both the work and the price rest on three answers — which liquid, what amount, and if it has run — so our engineers ask. The price is given over the phone, before any van leaves.
The system is then purged thoroughly, once that tank is emptied. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that matters more here than with petrol. Once the filter is cleaned — or renewed, if required — clean diesel is added, and then your car is tested. We don't go until it has been started and is running correctly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour once our engineers arrive, as long as the motor has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet at night outside a house. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Bronllys and where it is
Bronllys is a small village in Powys, Wales, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of around 140 metres. Bronllys has a population of approximately 548 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Bronllys is located near other small settlements such as Pont-y-wal and Coldbrook, and is within reach of the nearby town of Talgarth. Bronllys sits in a rural area, about 22.9 miles from the city of Hereford and 137.9 miles from London.
AdBlue drains about Bronllys, and Powys beyond
Coldbrook and Talgarth are among the places around Bronllys, a village, that the same teams cover, over LD postcodes. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting LD3 0.
Your car stays where it is. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Marish Wood, a side street close to Royston Memorial Hall: we drain it where it is. Awkward to pin down, like the back of Bronllys Hospital Chapel? Close to a border? Checking beats guessing, and so phone.
Bronllys people: the short version
First, the cap; then, the pour. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it wherever it stands, anywhere around Powys: switch the car off then call 0333 366 0103.