Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Cwm-nant-gwynt
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does your engine. Water with urea mixed in it: that is AdBlue. Unlike fuel, it neither ignites nor mixes, and nothing happens till the motor pulls it through. Caught before your motor has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Cwm-nant-gwynt. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Cwm-nant-gwynt: the first few minutes
To do:
- Keys out — that way no one can power anything on.
- If you are at all close to moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- Hold on to the till receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- Call just where you are. Say a NP13 2 postcode or the nearest street name, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Do not do these:
- Don't start your motor, even for a moment to move the car.
- Plenty of diesels run their pump the moment the ignition goes on, and so keep the vehicle off.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, even a short stretch along Parkway.
- Do not try to drain the vehicle yourself by the roadside.
The staff working at any Cwm-nant-gwynt forecourt — the the nearest petrol station among them — will usually help rolling it clear if you ask. At home, your car remains exactly where it was left.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not the motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Kept in a dedicated tank, it is squirted into the exhaust stream to clean the fumes. No part in a fuel pump is designed for this liquid — and none of it was intended to go through one.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once tipped in, will not. Its behaviour is not at all like fuel's. It's heavier than diesel, so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup sucks fuel from. Easiest of all: one that had AdBlue in Trinant last night and has not been started since. The liquid sits at the foot of the tank, undrawn — but it will be first through if the engine runs, ahead of any diesel at all.
From there it does two kinds of damage. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it leaves urea that crystallises in filters and tiny channels; and, since it attacks some metals, every part it reaches keeps suffering for as long as it remains in there. Where the AdBlue is in the lines, waiting overnight in Cwm-nant-gwynt leaves things worse. Inside that tank alone, time costs nothing. The water in it does harm of its own: your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel commonly the bigger problem?
Petrol put into a diesel on Texaco's forecourt leaves your fuel thin — that is the whole fault. It mixes with the diesel, and while it's inside that tank it does no damage; the damage comes from running your engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. It cannot just be run through, because it doesn't burn. It does not stay mixed, and so it cannot be weakened. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the car is in Brynithel or the middle of Cwm-nant-gwynt.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Never run? Then the AdBlue waits only inside the tank, the simplest section of the whole system to clear, anywhere the car has stopped across Caerphilly.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Cwm-nant-gwynt
Plenty of cars put the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel cap, occasionally under a single flap, and in dim light the two may appear identical. Nobody means it. Most of the time it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the pump.
The ways it happens are few and familiar. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside the local primary school. Near Trinant Terrace, a driver pours a container in at home in the evening. Or someone new to that flap tops up your vehicle in dim light, parked in the car park outside Trinant Sports & Social Club.
The least known vehicles get it the most — rentals, new ones, fleet cars, and the spare vehicle in a family with both fuel types. An identical slip, an identical first step — keep it off — wherever you happen to be around Cwm-nant-gwynt or the remainder of Caerphilly.
Cwm-nant-gwynt: started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer inside the tank. Via the filter, along the lines, and — given any running time — into the injection pump and each injector: that's how far it travels.
Maybe coming back from Pen-y-fan Country Park, or part way across Cwm-nant-gwynt, your engine may go lumpy, smoke, lose power, light up the dash or stall. No starting it again to check: stop when safe, then switch it off. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M4, under 10 miles from Cwm-nant-gwynt, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue further in. That is why a hop across Cwm-nant-gwynt to park beside Trinant Community Centre and a drive of under 15 miles towards Newport are very separate jobs. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
There is more to clean out once your engine has run, and we do all of it where your car has ended up. Caught early, it very rarely leaves long-term damage.
Cwm-nant-gwynt: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
The vehicle stays put, whether that's a road beside Christ Church, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station in Cwm-nant-gwynt, and our van travels to it. The work rests on three answers, which our engineers get before all else — what went in, the amount, and whether your engine has run.
Then the tank is drained where the car waits, so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. The fuel system is rinsed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Clean diesel goes in once the fuel filter is cleaned — or swapped, if it needs to be — and after that the vehicle is tested. If your engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Clean diesel goes in to bleed your system, and that's the final step. You head off as soon as our engineers have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a drive around Cwm-nant-gwynt or in a bay by Llanhilleth. It's checked on fresh diesel to make sure it runs smoothly before our engineers head off. The entire job is done where your car is, so it never has to go to a garage. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers ask for.
About Cwm-nant-gwynt and where it is
Cwm-nant-gwynt is a small village in Caerphilly, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of 262 metres. Cwm-nant-gwynt has a mix of semi-detached housing and is located near the villages of Pen-twyn and Pentrapeod. Cwm-nant-gwynt is close to the city of Newport, which is approximately 10 miles away. Cwm-nant-gwynt is a rural community with a population of around 723 people.
AdBlue drains around Cwm-nant-gwynt and across Caerphilly
Over the NP postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue call-outs in Cwm-nant-gwynt reach much of Caerphilly as well, Pen-twyn, Pentrapeod and Glandwr among them. Close to a border, or somewhere awkward to pin down? Checking is better than assuming, and so phone.
A mobile service suits Cwm-nant-gwynt, a village: you have no need to bring the car to us, because our engineers drain it on the spot, in a driveway, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Cwm-nant-gwynt: the cost of fixing it
Because each callouts vary, a flat price would not be fair. Three things change the cost: whether the motor has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where your car is. That last one comes down to whether a technician can get to it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight gap behind Ebbw Fach Community Group.
For that reason, every enquiry from Cwm-nant-gwynt opens with the identical trio — which fluid got in, what quantity, if the engine ran — ahead of a quote. When those are known, a range becomes one fixed figure.
Quoted by phone before the van sets out, it is settled on the day — card or phone, no deposit. While the van is travelling, check your insurance: many cover misfuelling.
Cwm-nant-gwynt: still next to your car?
Not touching the car is, then, the best thing you can do. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, in Cwm-nant-gwynt or wherever within Caerphilly, once you phone 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran.