Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Felinfoel: Why It Occurs
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then put this page aside for now, keep your ignition and engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, done right where the vehicle stands around Felinfoel, is normally all it needs if found before your engine runs. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page explains the why it takes place and the how to prevent it altogether.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Diesel goes to your engine — yet plenty of current diesels driven round Felinfoel and Llanerch carry another liquid too. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
Each tank has its own filler. Some cars keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have both side by side behind one flap. Diesel gets filled at every filling station call-out, again and again. The AdBlue side is topped up far less often, normally from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the slip lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank take place in Felinfoel?
It is hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Haste follows from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a drive off Park View, or heading home in the car park outside The Royal Oak.
Unfamiliar cars are second, too. Hire cars, new motors and company cars place their fillers differently, and habit goes for the cap used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, after begun, carries on. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Felinfoel or out in Swiss Valley.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Whether a Felinfoel forecourt or a driveway over in Dafen, spend a few seconds on these before any is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Open the flap and check for a label — plenty of cars show which goes in which filler just there.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Llanelli.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
Wherever in Carmarthenshire the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Dafen Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, but it works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Find at stage two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? Then stop right there. Never go on to step five.
Felinfoel: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Brief list, then. First: your engine stays unstarted. Leave your ignition off as well, because on plenty of diesels it by itself runs the pump. Thinning it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom rather than blending — and that is where the fuel is sucked from.
Ask the staff to help roll your car clear of the petrol pump if you're at a forecourt — the Texaco, the Shell or somewhere else. If you are on your own drive around Felinfoel, leave the car where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your motor has already run. Felinfoel sits under 5 miles from the M4; there, take the next exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Swansea, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Felinfoel.
When we turn up around Felinfoel, what takes place?
Outside the local primary school, near Felinfoel Baptistery or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it has run, because those answers decide this work and the price. On the phone call itself, you are told the quote — before anything else.
The fuel system is then purged thoroughly, after the tank is cleared. 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 the flush counts more here than with petrol. After the fuel filter has been flushed — or renewed, where required — clean diesel goes in, and finally your car gets tested. Then we fire it up and confirm it runs correctly before leaving.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour after our technicians get there, as long as your engine has not run — and the pumps we use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Felinfoel and where it is
Felinfoel is a suburban area in Carmarthenshire, situated near the coast and approximately 10 miles west of Swansea. Felinfoel sits at a relatively low elevation of 32 metres, with nearby areas including Swiss Valley and Pentre-Poeth. Felinfoel has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are particularly common in the area. Felinfoel is located near the larger urban centre of Swansea, but retains its own distinct character.
AdBlue drains across Carmarthenshire, Felinfoel included
Felinfoel is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the places around it, Pentre-Poeth and Tyrfran among them, across the SA postcode area. Fastest of all: give a SA14 8 postcode for our van.
Your car stays put. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Penygaer Playing Fields, a side street close to Phil Bennet Statue: our technicians drain the vehicle where it sits. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Adulam Chapel.
For Felinfoel people, the short version
Tip nothing until you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere in Carmarthenshire.