Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it's generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain. Here before the event? In that case the rest covers why it happens and what to stop it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Many newer diesels around Tre-derwen, like those in Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain, carry on two liquids; the engine gets only your diesel. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust gas and cleans it.
Each tank has its own filler. Some vehicles put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot of others have the two together under one flap. Diesel goes in on every filling station call-out, week in, week out. Seldom filled, AdBlue usually goes in from a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think which filler to use. That gap is where the slip lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain: how it happens
It's seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle 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 drive off A495 before work, or in the car park outside The Sun on the way home.
The old car's cap is where your hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That is the second thing: a strange motor.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip once it has started. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain or out in Llansanffraid-ym-Mechain.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Be it a Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain forecourt or a driveway over in Bryn Tanat, take a couple of seconds over these before any goes in.
- Read the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue ones are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally aren't.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — many motors show what belongs in each inlet just there.
- The handbook says which it lives if the filler is not next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Welshpool, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
On the day the warning appears — anywhere you are in Powys — a routine to use.
- Not in a rush on the side of St. Bride's Way, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park then switch off properly.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, but it works.
- Leave your 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, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, and look again — confirm the diesel cap remained shut throughout. After that, start the vehicle.
Find at the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the wrong tank? That's where you stop. Skip stage five altogether.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your engine. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the car on. Thinning it with extra diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of blending — and that is where your fuel is sucked from.
The attendants at Esso, Texaco or any forecourt will normally help pushing the vehicle away when you ask. If you are on your own driveway in Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain, leave the vehicle where it stands.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. On the M54, under 50 miles from Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain, that means the next junction. Mileage matters — a short hop across Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain is a smaller job than heading under 25 miles towards Wrexham — so say roughly how far it went.
Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain: what happens when our engineers get there
Our van reaches your car wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, near St Ffraid's, or by Bryn Offa CofE Primary School. The answers decide the work and our price, and so our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it has run. No one heads out before you've heard the quote by phone.
The fuel system is then cleaned thoroughly, after your tank is cleared. More than with petrol, it counts here: the crystals build up, some metals are attacked, and none of it clears out unaided, however long it is left. Filter cleaned or, where needed, swapped; fresh diesel in; then a check of the car. The engine is started next and checked to be sure it runs correctly, all before we leave.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once our technicians arrive, provided your motor has not run — and the pumps we use are safe on a busy forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Before we get there, have a look at your insurance documents; plenty include cover for misfuelling.
About Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain, for a moment
Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain is a village in Powys, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of 78 metres. Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain has a mix of old and new housing, with detached homes being the predominant type, and is located near the villages of Llansanffraid-ym-Mechain, Waen, and Winllan. Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain is approximately 20 miles from Wrexham and 155 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Powys, Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain included
As a village, Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain has the same vans as nearby places — Waen, Winllan — right through SY postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Fastest of all: give a SY22 6 postcode to our van.
There's no need to shift your car. The drain takes place on the spot, be it a drive, a road by St Michael's, or a layby towards Badgers Wood. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Llanfechain Memorial Hall, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain drivers: the short version
Pour nothing until you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere in Powys, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — and so leave it off and call 0333 366 0103.