AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Carway: How It Occurs and How to Avoid It
Stop reading a minute if the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your engine runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Carway. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
Many modern diesels on the roads around Carway and Pen-y-mynydd carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
Every tank comes with a filler of its own. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on many motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Diesel goes in at every forecourt call-out, again and again. Far less often, the AdBlue side gets topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens around Carway
It's hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the car, and running out means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Maes-y-Wern, or outside the pub in the village on the way home after work.
Then, your hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old car — because a rental car, a new motor or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after begun, keeps on. Whether it occurs in Pontyates or the middle of Carway, it's the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt around Carway or a drive out in Heol-ddu. Seconds, that's all.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue ones are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually are not.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the flap and look for a label — many cars mark what belongs in which filler right there.
- Cannot find it next to your diesel filler? In that case look beneath the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook says which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Pembrey & Burry Port, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
The day the light goes on, anywhere around Carmarthenshire, follow this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Lon Hir.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Skip step five entirely.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Carway?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your motor. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel will not thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, just where fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — Asda, Murco or another — the attendants will usually help roll your car clear, when you ask. At home around Carway? So your car remains put.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. The next exit means where to leave when you're on the M4, under 10 miles from Carway. A short hop across Carway is a smaller job than a run towards Swansea, under 15 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
Carway: what takes place when our technicians arrive
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside the local primary school, near Capel Bethel or on your own drive. Both the work and the price rest on three answers — what fluid, what amount, and if it's run — so our technicians ask. Nobody sets off until you've heard our quote by phone.
Draining that tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. After your filter has been cleaned — or replaced, where needed — clean diesel is added, and finally your vehicle gets tested. We don't leave until it has been started and is running correctly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after we arrive, provided the motor has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. No money upfront; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. It is worth looking at your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Carway, for a moment
Carway is a small village in Carmarthenshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 52 metres. Carway lies near the communities of Pontyates, Trimsaran, and Waun y Clyn, and is approximately 14.7 miles from Swansea. Carway has a population of around 1401 people, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type. Carway is located in a rural area, with easy access to the nearby city of Swansea.
AdBlue drains around Carway and across Carmarthenshire
Trimsaran and Waun y Clyn are among the towns around Carway, a village, that the same vans cover, over SA postcodes. A postcode starting SA17 4 gets our van to you fastest.
No need to shift the car. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Tre-gôch Wood, a side street close to Neuadd Carwe Hall: we drain the vehicle where it stands. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Capel Seilo.
The short version for Carway motorists
Before you tip, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it waits, anywhere in Carmarthenshire.