Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Limeslade
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and the ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out right where the vehicle sits around Limeslade, is usually what it needs if found before the motor runs. The rest of this page explains why it happens and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you're reading before it has happened.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads about Limeslade and Mumbles carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, where spraying treats the fumes.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, side by side: that's the layout on a lot of motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Topping up your diesel side at the petrol pump happens constantly. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. That gap is where the error lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Limeslade
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Plunch Lane before work, or in the car park at The George on the way home.
The old car's cap is where your hand goes — yet a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's a second thing: an unfamiliar vehicle.
Lastly, the bottle goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in just as easily, and once the pour begins, no part stops it. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Limeslade or out in Thistleboon.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt in Limeslade or a driveway out in Oystermouth. Seconds, no more.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually is not. Read it instead of going by position.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on many cars. Look for it.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Swansea, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Anywhere across Swansea the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Not in a rush on the side of William Gammon Drive, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park then switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the car, shut the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap was never opened off.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Do not go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Limeslade already?
Don't start the engine: that's where the short order of things starts. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition goes on — and so leave it off. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
At a forecourt — Newton Garage, Texaco or any other — the staff will normally help roll the car away, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Limeslade.
Already started? Stop once it is safe, then switch off. On the M4, under 10 miles from Limeslade, that means the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Limeslade is less work than a trip of under 5 miles to Swansea, and so tell us.
When our engineers get there around Limeslade, what occurs?
Our van comes to the car anywhere it stopped — your own drive, beside Limeslade Beach, or by the local primary school. Those answers settle this work and our price, and so our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it has run. On the call itself, you are told our quote — before anything else.
The fuel system is then flushed thoroughly, after your tank is cleared. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more here than with petrol. Filter cleaned or, if needed, swapped; clean diesel in; then a test of the vehicle. After that we fire it up and confirm it runs smoothly before we leave.
With pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the engine hasn't run need about half an hour once we arrive. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Limeslade, briefly
Limeslade is a coastal suburban area in Swansea, situated approximately 4.2 miles from the city centre, with Limeslade being one of the many residential communities that make up the larger Swansea urban area. Limeslade sits at an elevation of 47 metres, overlooking the coastline and nearby landmarks such as Mumbles Hill. Limeslade is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting the area's residential nature.
AdBlue drains around Limeslade and across Swansea
Throughout SA postcodes, our vans that cover Limeslade — a residential suburb — work the nearby locations too, Mumbles Hill and The Knab among them. Quote a postcode beginning SA3 4, and our van arrives fastest.
There's no need to shift your car. Wherever it sits — near Our Lady, Star of the Sea, in a layby en route to Mumbles Cricket Club, on a drive — that's where it is cleared. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of All Saints' Church Rooms.
For Limeslade people, the short version
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere across Swansea, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — and so leave it off then call 0333 366 0103.