How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Llwydarth
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then put this page down a moment, keep the ignition and engine off, and call 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Llwydarth. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page covers the why it takes place and the ways to avoid it altogether.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads around Llwydarth and Cwmfelin carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. 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. Many of cars have a single flap for the two, while others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, poured by someone who must stop and think what filler it needs. The mistake grows in that gap between the two.
Llwydarth: how AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Llys Gwyn before work, or in the car park at Red Cow on the way home.
Then the vehicle is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it happens in Y Parc or the middle of Llwydarth, it is the same few seconds.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Llangynwyd or a forecourt around Llwydarth, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally are not.
- On plenty of motors, size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside the fuel flap: many cars carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows where it is if your filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at Maesteg (Ewenny Road)? Ask whoever drove the car last before leaving, rather than once the light goes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
The day the light goes on, wherever across Bridgend, use this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Yr Ysfa.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, yes, but it does the trick.
- Both under one flap? Then confirm the cap on your diesel filler is still shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Shut the cap, then look once more — making sure the diesel filler stayed closed the whole time. After that, start the car.
Find at stage two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? Then stop right there. Never go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Llwydarth already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your motor. Don't switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is pulled from.
At a forecourt — Oils for Wales, another forecourt nearby or another — the staff will normally help roll the vehicle away, if you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive around Llwydarth.
Already started? Pull over when it's sensible, then turn off. On the M4, under 5 miles from Llwydarth, that means the next exit. About how far did it go? Hopping across Llwydarth is less a job than a run of under 15 miles towards Swansea, and so tell us.
When we arrive in Llwydarth, what takes place?
Outside the local primary school, near Our Lady's Grotto or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, we come to it. Our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it's run, because the replies determine this work and our price. On the call itself, you hear the price — before dispatch.
The fuel system is then cleaned thoroughly, once the tank is drained. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more here than with petrol. After the fuel filter is flushed — or replaced, if needed — clean diesel goes in, and then your car is tested. Before we leave, we start it and make sure that it is running properly.
Using pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your engine hasn't run need roughly half an hour once we are there. Your insurer usually wants an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both once this job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Llwydarth, for a moment
Llwydarth is a locality situated in a riverside setting in Bridgend, with an elevation of 167 metres. Llwydarth lies near the communities of Y Parc and Maesteg, and is close to the town of Garth. Llwydarth is characterized by its semi-detached housing and is located approximately 12 miles from Swansea. Llwydarth is a relatively small community with a population of around 2058 residents.
AdBlue drains across Bridgend, Llwydarth included
Llwydarth is a small village, and our teams that cover it also work the towns around it, Maesteg and Garth among them, across the CF postcode area. Quote a postcode beginning CF34 9, and the van arrives fastest.
The car does not need to shift. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Maesteg Swimming Pool, a lay-by on the way to Coed, a drive. Guessing doesn't help behind Bethel Community Church, close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to pin down; phone and check.
For Llwydarth drivers, the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere around Bridgend, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — and so leave it off and ring 0333 366 0103.