AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Glan-y-llyn? Don't Start It
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does your motor. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. Unlike fuel, it neither ignites nor blends, and no harm happens till the engine sucks it round. In Glan-y-llyn, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before your motor runs normally comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, right where your car is. No step comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
Glan-y-llyn, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do right away
Do:
- So no one can switch your ignition on, take the keys out.
- Close to moving traffic? So put the hazards on.
- Which fluid, and roughly what amount? Hang on to the bottle or the receipt, and we can see.
- Our van locates you quickest with a postcode starting CF15 7, or just the name of a street nearby, so call from the spot.
Not to do:
- Do not start the engine, even for a moment to move the car.
- Switching the key to ignition alone starts your pump going on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra diesel won't thin it.
- Leave the vehicle where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way down Glan-y-Ffordd.
- Emptying your tank yourself beside the road is not worth trying.
Rolling your car off the island is a job for staff to help with, whichever Glan-y-llyn forecourt you're on, the BP included. If you are on your own drive, leave it just where it stands.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The motor isn't what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once tipped in, won't. The behaviour is nothing like fuel's. Heavier than diesel, it sinks and collects underneath it — the same place the pickup draws from. A car filled on a driveway in Nantgarw overnight and not started since counts as the straightforward one. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up so far — but when the motor turns, that is what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of your tank.
From there it causes two kinds of damage. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it strands urea that crystallises in filter elements and narrow channels; meanwhile, because it eats at some metals, each part it touches suffers for as long as it remains inside. By daybreak, a car sitting in Glan-y-llyn with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; where it's only in that tank, nothing changes. Water protects nothing. The high-pressure pump and each injector need diesel running past them, and so the water part damages them in its own right.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's frequently worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the another forecourt nearby and you have a problem of thin fuel. Damage only comes from running on it. Blended into your diesel and left inside your tank, it causes nothing.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is plainly the wrong one. Not burning, it cannot just be run through. Whether your vehicle is in Taffs Well or the heart of Glan-y-llyn, firing it up "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other mistake, and the flush counts more. The reasons: it won't remain mixed, so watering it down is impossible; and deposits and corrosion survive the next fill.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Anywhere around Rhondda Cynon Taf the car has come to rest, an unstarted motor leaves the AdBlue yet in the tank: the simplest part of any fuel system to empty.
Glan-y-llyn: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of vehicles rests right next to your diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the pump.
It tends to occur in a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside the local primary school. A driver pours the container in outside their house, just off A470, as the day ends. Or your car is topped up in the car park at The Swan Inn, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
It happens most in the motors drivers know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. An identical mistake, same first step — leave it switched off — anywhere you are around Glan-y-llyn or the remainder of Rhondda Cynon Taf.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Glan-y-llyn?
The AdBlue has left the tank, then. With any running time, it travels to the high-pressure pump and every injector, having passed via your filter and pipework.
Expect lumpy running, smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a cut-out — returning from Craig yr Allt Common, say, or part way across Glan-y-llyn. Pull over when it is safe. Switch off. Keep it off instead of restarting it to check. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
Glan-y-llyn sits under 3 miles from the M4; if you were on it, exit at the next junction and stop safely rather than carrying on.
Distance matters: every mile pushes the AdBlue further in, so heading towards Cardiff, under 10 miles away, gives a far larger job than crossing Glan-y-llyn to the car park by War memorial. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
There is more to clean out once the engine has been started, and our technicians do all of it where the car has ended up. Very seldom does it leave permanent damage when it's spotted early.
Glan-y-llyn: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
We come to your car, wherever it has stopped around Glan-y-llyn: a side street near The Taff's Well, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Before anything else we ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether your engine has been run, since those replies decide the work.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out together after your tank is emptied, on the spot. The system is purged thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. A test of the vehicle follows last, once clean diesel goes in and your filter is cleaned or, if necessary, swapped. If the motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there. Explosion-proof pumps mean a busy forecourt sensible to work on, and they run quiet enough not to disturb the neighbours at night.
Priming your system with new diesel comes at the end. Starting the engine comes next, and then you drive off from where the vehicle is parked, at Taffs Well or on a driveway in Glan-y-llyn. The check before we go is that it runs correctly on fresh diesel. The whole job is done where your car is, so it never needs to be taken to a workshop. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers want.
About Glan-y-llyn, for a moment
Glan-y-llyn is a suburban area in Rhondda Cynon Taf, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of 58 metres. Glan-y-llyn lies close to the nearby communities of Bryncoch and Gwaelod-y-garth, and is characterized by its semi-detached housing stock. Glan-y-llyn is located near the city of Cardiff, which is approximately 6 miles away.
Glan-y-llyn and Rhondda Cynon Taf: AdBlue drains across the area
The vans that answer AdBlue calls around Glan-y-llyn also cover the spots about it, Bryncoch, Gwaelod-y-garth and Ty Rhiw among them, and most of Rhondda Cynon Taf beyond, across the CF postcode area. Assuming doesn't help close to a county line or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and check.
A van that comes to you suits Glan-y-llyn, a residential suburb: there's no need to bring the car to us, since our engineers drain it there, in a drive, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Glan-y-llyn: the cost of fixing it
Not one single figure could be honest, since every job is different. What changes the price is, firstly, whether your engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and then where your car is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight space behind Gwaelod-Y-Garth Village Hall.
Which fluid went in, how much, plus whether the engine ran: every Glan-y-llyn call begins by asking precisely that, before any quote, not afterwards. When they are answered, a range becomes a single fixed number.
Before a van heads out, you are told our price by phone. Then you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover comes with many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Beside the car around Glan-y-llyn, still?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, then, the best thing you can do. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 then tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Glan-y-llyn or anywhere across Rhondda Cynon Taf.