Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Maes Pennant: Why It Occurs
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then put this page down for now, leave the ignition and motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Normally, if the motor hasn't run, it is emptied and thoroughly rinsed where the car sits in Maes Pennant. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the rest of the page covers the why it happens and the ways to prevent it altogether.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Many current diesels on the roads about Maes Pennant and Llannerch-y-mor carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. The exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue ends up: sprayed into the fumes to fresh it, from a separate tank.
Each tank has one filler of its own. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. Far less commonly, the AdBlue side is filled — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Maes Pennant: how it takes place
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
Haste comes from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off Ffordd Pandarus, or on the way home in the car park at The Old Tavern Inn.
The old car's cap is where your hand reaches — yet a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That is a second factor: a strange car.
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 after it has started. Glan-y-don or the middle of Maes Pennant: it takes the same few seconds either way.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Check these first, on a forecourt around Maes Pennant or a driveway over in Golch. Seconds, no more.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Look inside your fuel flap: many vehicles have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at West Kirby? Ask the person who drove the car last before leaving, not once the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Flintshire that is.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time to spare — not rushing on the side of Ffordd Pennant.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, and check again — confirm the diesel cap remained closed the whole time. After that, start the car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Maes Pennant already?
What follows is a short order of things, beginning with not starting the motor. Keep the ignition off as well, since on many diesels switching it on by itself starts your pump. Topping up with diesel will not thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, right where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help roll the vehicle clear of the petrol pump if you're on a forecourt — the Texaco, the BP or anywhere else. On your own drive around Maes Pennant? So the vehicle remains put.
Where the engine has been run already, pull over somewhere safe then turn the car off. On the Moreton Spur, under 10 miles from Maes Pennant, that means the next junction. A short hop across Maes Pennant is a smaller job than a run towards St Asaph, under 10 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
What happens when our engineers turn up around Maes Pennant
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside the local primary school, near St Margaret's Church or on your own driveway. Both the work and the quote depend on three answers — what liquid, which amount, and if it has run — so our technicians ask. You get that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off.
Next: draining, then a full flush of the whole system. 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 that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. Filter cleaned or, if needed, replaced; clean diesel in; then a test of the vehicle. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour after our engineers get there, provided your motor has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet at night beside a house. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, have a look at your policy; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Maes Pennant and where it is
Maes Pennant is a small suburban area in Flintshire, situated near the coast of north-east Wales. Maes Pennant sits at an elevation of 39 metres, close to the nearby settlements of Glan-y-don and Mostyn. Maes Pennant is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, reflecting the residential development of the area. Maes Pennant is located approximately 8.5 miles from the city of St Asaph, and is part of the wider coastal community in the region.
AdBlue drains across Flintshire, Maes Pennant included
As a residential suburb, Maes Pennant has the same vans as nearby places — Mostyn, Rhewl-Mostyn — all the way across CH postcodes and the wider area beyond. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting CH8 9.
Moving the car is not necessary. Anywhere it sits — beside TSS Duke of Lancaster, on a layby en route to Whitford Wood, at home — that's where it gets emptied. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Bouy, ring and ask instead of assuming.
The short version for Maes Pennant people
Read the cap before you tip. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Leave the car switched off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, throughout Flintshire.