Hardwick: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave your motor and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before the motor runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Hardwick. The remainder of this page covers why it takes place and how to make sure it does not — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Many modern diesels around Tutshill, as well as Hardwick, carry on two liquids; the engine gets just your diesel. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Other motors keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot more have both side by side under one flap. Topping up the diesel side at the pump goes on constantly. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less commonly, normally from a bottle, and usually by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. It's in the gap that the mistake happens.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens in Hardwick
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the vehicle, and letting it run out means limp mode — so a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Waters Way, or outside Queen's Head Micropub on the way home after work.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — but a rental car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That's a second factor: a strange motor.
Nothing halts the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Chepstow or the heart of Hardwick: it takes the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A few seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a drive in Pwllmeyric or a forecourt around Hardwick.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Chepstow.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Monmouthshire that is.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time to spare — not rushing on the side of Severn Crescent.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you've located the filler and read the cap.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two sit under a flap, make sure it is shut before the bottle comes up.
- Stop once your tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; until then, pour gently through its built-in spout.
- Close the cap, then look again — making sure your diesel filler stayed shut throughout. Only then, start the vehicle.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Do not go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Hardwick already?
The short order of things, beginning with not starting the motor. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment your ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Thinning it with more diesel won't work, since AdBlue settles to the bottom instead of blending — and that is where your fuel is sucked from.
Ask the staff to help push the vehicle away from the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Tesco, the BP or anywhere else. If you are on your own drive in Hardwick, leave the car where it is.
Already run? Pull over once it's safe, then switch off. The next junction means where to come off if you're on the M48, under 3 miles from Hardwick. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Bristol, under 15 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Hardwick.
Our arrival in Hardwick, and what happens next
The van comes to your car anywhere it has come to rest — your own drive, near St Mary's, or outside Lift Offa's Mead. Our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and if it's run, because the replies decide this work and the price. During the phone call itself, you are told the quote — ahead of anything else.
Then that tank is drained and your system cleaned thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. The engine is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs properly, all before our engineers head off.
Unstarted cars usually need a half-hour visit after the moment we arrive. The kit is safe on a busy forecourt, and quiet enough for a residential street after dark. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once this job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Hardwick itself
Hardwick is a suburban area in Monmouthshire, situated near the coast and approximately 13 miles from Bristol. Hardwick has a population of around 3823 people and is characterized by predominantly terraced housing. Hardwick sits at an elevation of 27 metres, looking out towards the Bristol Channel. Hardwick is close to nearby places such as Chepstow, Bulwark, and Sedbury.
Hardwick and Monmouthshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Bulwark and Sedbury are among the places near Hardwick, a residential suburb, that the same vans cover, throughout NP postcodes. Quickest of all: quote a NP16 5 postcode for the van.
There's no need to shift the vehicle. The drain happens right there, be it a drive, a street by Palmer Community Centre, or a layby on the way to Garden City Comunity Garden. Assuming doesn't help at the back of Chepstow Town Council, on a boundary, or anywhere awkward to describe; phone and ask.
In short, for Hardwick drivers
Tip nothing until you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Monmouthshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless — and so leave the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.