Clwt-y-bont: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does the engine. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. It doesn't burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the damage it does begins when the fuel system pulls it in. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Clwt-y-bont, is usually all AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before your motor has run. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Clwt-y-bont: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- So nobody can switch the ignition on, pull your keys away.
- If you're at all close to moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- The empty bottle or the receipt tells us the fluid and the amount, so don't throw it out.
- Give us a postcode starting LL55 3, or whatever street lies nearest, and our van reaches you directly — so call wherever you stand.
Never:
- No starting your engine — not for a second, not to reposition your car.
- Switching your key to ignition alone starts your pump running on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- No extra fuel added. The AdBlue will not blend, and so it's pointless.
- Even a short distance down Stad Hafod is too far to drive it.
- Do not try to drain it yourself at the roadside.
At a forecourt around Clwt-y-bont, whether it's the Calor or another one, ask the staff to help you push your car away from the pump. If you are on your own drive, leave it just where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the motor. From a separate tank it goes straight to your exhaust, cleaning what your engine emits. A fuel pump is not designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Tipped in with your diesel, it keeps apart rather than mixing — entirely unlike fuel. The pickup takes fuel from the deepest part of your tank, and that is exactly where AdBlue settles: as it is heavier than diesel, it sinks. A motor filled on a driveway in Fachwen yesterday evening and not started since counts as the straightforward one. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — but when your engine runs, that's what goes first, straight from the bottom of the tank.
Two kinds of harm come from there. It attacks some metals used in fuel systems, working on whatever it touches till it's cleared completely. And once the water goes, the urea forms crystals that clog filters and settle in tiny channels. If the AdBlue is in the lines, waiting till morning in Clwt-y-bont makes things worse. Inside the tank alone, waiting does nothing. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and every injector as it passes; water gives no lubrication, which is a separate form of damage.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's frequently worse than petrol
An issue of thin fuel is what you get from fuelling a diesel with petrol at the Texaco. Blended into the diesel and left unused, it is no threat at that stage; running your engine is the damage.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is simply the wrong one. Since it does not burn, running it through isn't an option. It does not stay mixed, so it cannot be thinned. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your engine "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether your car is in Brynrefail or the middle of Clwt-y-bont.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Not run? Then the AdBlue sits only inside that tank, the simplest bit of the entire system to empty, anywhere the vehicle has come to rest in Gwynedd.
Clwt-y-bont: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many cars waits right next to your diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It mostly happens outside the house, from a container grabbed en route home, not at the filling station.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside the local primary school the top-up is rushed. Someone tips the container in outside their house, right off Pont Ciali, as the day ends. Else, after dark by the pub in the village, the vehicle is refilled by a driver using that flap the first time.
The least known cars see it most — hire cars, brand-new ones, fleet ones, and the spare vehicle of a home with both fuels. Keep it off: that's the first step to the same slip, wherever around Clwt-y-bont or the rest of Gwynedd you are.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Clwt-y-bont, and the motor started?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. Through your filter, along the lines, and — given any running — into the high-pressure pump and each injector: that is how far it travels.
Maybe coming back from Coed y Clegyr, or midway across Clwt-y-bont, your engine may run rough, smoke, drop power, light up the dash or stall. Stop when it is safe. Turn off. Keep it off instead of restarting it to check. Every start pulls more of it through.
Exit the Moreton Spur, under 50 miles from Clwt-y-bont, by the first junction and stop somewhere safe, not carrying on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue deeper into your system. That's why a hop across Clwt-y-bont to park near Deiniolen War Memorial and a drive of under 10 miles towards Bangor are very different jobs. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our engineers do all of the flushing where the car has stopped, and once the motor has been started there is more of it. Very rarely does it leave permanent damage when it is noticed early.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Clwt-y-bont?
Our engineers come to your car, wherever it has stopped around Clwt-y-bont: a side street close to Deiniolen Library, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The work depends on three replies, and we ask for first — which fluid got in, the quantity, and whether your motor has run.
Then that tank is cleared where the car sits, so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. The fuel system is flushed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Fresh diesel goes in once the filter is cleaned — or swapped, if it needs to be — and after that the car is tested. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once our engineers arrive, if the motor hasn't run. The equipment is explosion-proof, so a live forecourt is no fault, and it is hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
Clean diesel goes in to prime the fuel system, and that's the final step. You drive off as soon as our engineers have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a driveway in Clwt-y-bont or in a bay at Bangor (Gwynedd). The check before we go is that it runs smoothly on fresh diesel. Because the job is done in full where the car is, a garage never comes into it. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers ask for.
About Clwt-y-bont, for a moment
Clwt-y-bont is a small village in Gwynedd, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of around 175 metres. Clwt-y-bont lies close to the nearby settlements of Rhiwen, Deiniolen, and Gallt-y-foel, and is approximately 5.7 miles from the city of Bangor. Clwt-y-bont has a population of around 1050 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Clwt-y-bont is located in a scenic area, with the village surrounded by Welsh countryside.
AdBlue drains across Gwynedd, Clwt-y-bont included
AdBlue call-outs in Clwt-y-bont are passed to vans that cover the places around it — Rhiwen, Deiniolen as well as Gallt-y-foel — and most of Gwynedd further out, across LL postcodes. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask instead of assuming.
Clwt-y-bont is a village, and an on-site drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it sits, so it never needs to be moved to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Clwt-y-bont: the cost of fixing it
Not one single price could be fair, since every job is different. Whether your engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the location of your car, since an open driveway is simpler for our van to get to safely than a tight space behind Christ Church.
That's why each call from Clwt-y-bont starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and whether it's run. Their replies shrink a range right down to a single number.
You get that price by phone, before anybody sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
Alongside your car in Clwt-y-bont, right now?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Say it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if it ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel takes over, across Clwt-y-bont or anywhere in Gwynedd.